Microsoft Hires Yahoo Data Center Chief

Microsoft has hired Kevin Timmons, previously the head of Yahoo’s data center team, to lead its Data Center Services organization, the company said today. Timmons joined Microsoft Global Foundation Services (GFS) today, becoming the second member of the Yahoo team to move to Microsoft this year.

In April Microsoft hired Yahoo executive Dayne Sampson for a key position at GFS. Shortly afterward, Microsoft data center executive Michael Manos left the company for a new position at Digital Realty Trust.

Timmons was vice president of Operations at Yahoo!, where he led the build-out of their data centers and infrastructure. Before that he was a director of Operations at GeoCities, and prior to that he served as a senior software engineer at Marconi Dynamics.

“Kevin is known as a hands-on leader with a great grasp on the issues in his field and a keen interest in increasing energy efficiency,” wrote Arne Josefsberg, the General Manager of GFS, in a blog post. “One of the key ways he has approached that challenge was by closely measuring efficiency at each data center and using PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness) as a key metric—a strategy that helped build more efficient data centers. Kevin also brings valuable experience and know-how in the field of data center site selection.”

Microsoft Server Share Fading Fast?

Netcraft’s latest numbers on web server market share are out, and show a sharp drop for Microsoft IIS. The June survey shows a decline of more than 7.8 million sites on IIS, dropping Microsoft’s server marker share from 28.3 percent to 24.8 percent, a drop of 3.5 percent.

The falloff is even more dramatic in active sites, a separate metric Netcraft uses to differentiate between parked domains and actual web sites. Microsoft’s share of active sites plunged 7.6 percent in the June survey to 28 percent.

What’s behind the decline? Netcraft cites “a reduction of activity at Microsoft Live Spaces,” the company’s free blogging platform. The numbers obviously aren’t good news for Microsoft’s cloud ambitions, especially in light of continued gains for Google, which saw its market share jump 1.3 percent as it added sites on its Blogger service. The Chinese blogging service qq.com has also shown extraordinary growth in the Netcraft survey in recent months, and now hosts more than 30 million sites.

Why Microsoft Built Its Own CDN

Microsoft announced this week that it will begin providing on-demand access to the full versions of retail video games. That means titles like BioShock (6 Ggigabytes) and Mass Effect (7 GB) can be downloaded through the Xbox Live online gaming service, which has more than 17 million members. The growth of these type of bandwidth-draining services has been a major driver in Microsoft’s decision to build its own content delivery network.

Jeff Cohen, the general manager of Microsoft’s Edge Computing Network, discussed the company’s content delivery infrastructure in his May 11 keynote at the first Content Delivery Summit. Cohen said video delivery accounted for just 10 percent of Microsoft’s content delivery in 2007, but has since grown to 40 percent, consuming as much bandwidth as the company’s “large file” downloads of software and security updates.

“The content is exploding,” Cohen said at the event, part of Streaming Media East. But the barrier to entry for the CDN market is steep. ”It takes a huge amount of capital to get into this space, even for Microsoft.”

Report: Microsoft to Buy Chicago Site for $185M

The exterior of the massive Microsoft data center in Northlake, Ill.

It looks like Microsoft will buy its Chicago data center facility from the developers. Crain’s is reporting that Microsoft will pay $185 million to acquire the property from Ascent Corp and the Koman Group. The company will say only that it “doesn’t comment on rumors or speculation.”

The massive Chicago facility is the cornerstone of Microsoft’s plans to build an enormous cloud computing infrastructure with servers housed in 40-foot shipping containers. The company plans to house up to 400,000 servers in the enormous data center to power its Live suite of online services.

The $500 million facility was nearing completion late last year when Microsoft slowed construction as it scaled back its capital investment in its data center network, citing the need to cut costs in the face of the global economic slowdown. Microsoft later said it would bring the Chicago facility into production “as customer demand warrants.”  

Report: GFS Loses Staff in Microsoft Cuts

Yesterday’s layoffs at Microsoft included job losses at the company’s Global Foundation Services unit, which builds and operates the company’s data centers, according to TechHermit. “The Data Center and Network Engineering organizations were particularly hit hard with cuts,” he writes. Microsoft’s IT department has also been downsized in this round of layoffs, which affects about 3,000 employees, including 1,200 in the Seattle area. 

It’s not surprising that GFS would see some cutbacks, given the reduction in data center investment and Microsoft’s decision to postpone construction of its Iowa data center and extend the timetables on its Chicago and Dublin facilities. Those sites will ramp up when Microsoft needs more capacity for its online services unit. 

News reports suggest the units hit hardest by this week’s layoffs appear to be the Sales, Marketing and Service Group and  Massive, which delivers ads inside video games.

As Manos Exits, A Blog for the Road

As Michael Manos makes the transition from Microsoft to his new post at Digital Realty Trust, he has posted a blog item at Loose Bolts in which he takes a look back at his work heading the data center operations team at Microsoft. An excerpt:

I am extremely proud of our team’s accomplishments. We have overcome obstacles, we have changed mindsets both internal and external, we have impacted the industry as a whole, and I believe we have been more successful than we dared ourselves to believe. Whether it was our early adoption of energy efficiency and water conservancy, our rabid dedication to measurement and monitoring, the tooling and automation developed to drive our environments further, or the professional rigor brought to operations both in facilities and in the support of the IT equipment.  

Mike also shares an anecdote or two about the Quincy data center project. Read Loose Bolts for more.

Microsoft Still Committed to Containers

James Hamilton and Michael Manos have been perhaps the most visible advocates of Microsoft’s switch to a data center design featuring servers in shipping containers. Hamilton departed for Amazon in December, and this week we learned that Manos is taking a new position at Digital Realty Trust.   

Last week Microsoft hired Dayne Sampson for a key position in Global Foundation Services. As noted in much of the media coverage, Sampson came from Yahoo, a company that does not feature data center containers in its design (at least not publicly).

Is Microsoft rethinking its commitment to containers, including the container-centric, roofless Generation 4 data center design vision it announced in December? The company says no.

Microsoft’s Manos Joins Digital Realty Trust

Michael Manos, who was a key architect of Microsoft’s data center strategy, has left the company and accepted a position with Digital Realty Trust (DLR). Manos will serve as Senior Vice President of Technical Services for Digital Realty, the world’s largest data center landlord, the company said today. Manos (pictured at left) had been General Manager of Data Center Services for Microsoft Global Foundation Services, and was responsible for data center construction, design and operations for all Microsoft’s data centers around the world. He had been a key advocate for containerized design principles seen in Microsoft’s widely discussed Generation 4 design.

In his new position, Manos will oversee data center design and construction across Digital Realty’s global portfolio of properties, as well as technical operations. Manos will also spearhead the launch of a new professional services offering that the company will unveil shortly.