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Scientists Offered Free Access to Azure Cloud
February 5th, 2010 : Linda LeungMicrosoft is giving scientists and researchers supported by the National Science Foundation free access to its Azure cloud computing platform for three years. The deal would potentially, in one fell swoop, give Microsoft access to research projects that the NSF funds in nearly 2,000 universities and institutions in all 50 states.
The agreement would also give Microsoft access to computer scientists who could help the software giant to develop new ways to simplify the use of cloud computing for the scientific and research community.
Microsoft formed the eXtreme Computing Group in June 2009 as part of its Microsoft Research arm. Its goal is to develop “radical new approaches to ultrascale and high-performance computing hardware and software,” specifically for computer security, cloud computing, and data center architecture, among other areas.
“I am very excited about this, as it is the fruit of nearly two years of planning and collaboration across Microsoft product and research teams, as well as many discussions with researchers, university leaders and government agencies,” wrote Dan Reed, corporate vice president for Microsoft’s eXtreme Computing Group, in his blog.
‘More Than Adequate’ Horsepower
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Microsoft didn’t detail how much Azure capacity it would give away, but during a conference call announcing the deal, Reed said the compute power would be “more than adequate” for researchers’ needs. -
Virginia, NC Battle for Microsoft Data Center
February 5th, 2010 : Rich Miller
Will dozens of these Microsoft data center containers soon be filling a facility in Virginia or North Carolina? The two states are battling for the project.
Economic development teams in Virginia and North Carolina are competing for a huge Microsoft data center project. The tech giant is in the late stages of site location for a new East Coast regional data center, and has looked at sites in both states, sources say.
Microsoft has built four huge data centers to support the growth of its online business, including its Windows Azure cloud computing platform. The sites in Chicago, Dublin, San Antonio and Quincy, Washington have each been in the neighborhood of 500,000 square feet and involved enormous capital investment.
Microsoft’s focus on the mid-Atlantic region means another battle between Virginia and North Carolina, which competed head-to-head for the huge Apple data center that is now under construction in Maiden, North Carolina.
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Microsoft-HP Cloud Pact: How Big A Deal Is It?
January 14th, 2010 : Linda LeungMicrosoft and HP’s $250 million, three-year cloud computing pact announced Wednesday has left some pundits wondering whether this is just another marketing agreement to give the companies their 15 minutes on the cloud computing trending topics list, or a response to a similar tie-up between Cisco, VMware and EMC on private clouds announced in November, or even a response to this week’s announcement of VMware’s acquisition of messaging vendor Zimbra.
The Microsoft and HP pact – which is non-exclusive – involves the two companies “collaborating on an engineering roadmap” for a range of technologies including data management machines, prepackaged applications, virtualization, and management tools.
The companies will work to integrate Microsoft Exchange, Microsoft SQL Server applications, and Microsoft Hyper-V Server with HP hardware, storage and networking gear into prepackaged “machines” for specific applications, including data warehouse, business intelligence, and online-transaction processing.
Customers could hand off the hosting of these systems to a third-party, or they could build private clouds.
HP already offers so-called Smart Bundles of Microsoft Hyper-V on HP ProLiant Servers for small and midsize organizations, alongside its Smart Bundles of ProLiant with VMware.
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Microsoft Unveils Commercial Pricing For Azure
January 13th, 2010 : Linda Leung
Microsoft has announced pricing for its hosted Windows Azure cloud computing application platform. Microsoft in its Windows Azure Team Blog is urging Azure Community Technology Preview (CTP) users to upgrade to the commercial versions by Feb. 1.Windows Azure is priced at 12 cents per hour for a small compute instance, and 15 cents per gigabyte of storage per month. Storage transactions are priced at 1 cent per 10,000 storage transactions. Microsoft has published its full pricing for Azure on the Azure Team blog.
Transition Incentives Offered
As an incentive to buy the commercial version, Microsoft says users upgrading their accounts in January will not be charged for all Azure platform usage incurred during the same month.Users who choose not to upgrade their accounts will be given limited access to the products for a short time before the accounts are deleted, according to the blog posting. Microsoft will disable the CTP accounts of users who don’t upgrade and will make read-only any Windows Azure Storage. SQL Azure CTP users will not be able to create new databases, although they will be able to keep using their existing databases until March 1 when the SQL Azure CTP accounts will be deleted. The Azure platform AppFabric namespaces will also be disabled. Finally, on April 1, the Azure Storage CTP accounts and Azure platform AppFabric namespaces that have not been upgraded will be deleted.
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Microsoft’s Windows Azure Cloud Container
November 18th, 2009 : Rich MillerMicrosoft’s cloud container continues to evolve. The company has unveiled the next generation of its data center container at its Windows Professional Developers Conference, and it includes significant design advances over the existing containers deployed in Microsoft’s Chicago data center.
The 20-foot container on display at the PDC is an example of Microsoft’s Generation 4 Modular Data Center design, which abandons the raised-floor architecture that has been a staple of modern data center design in favor of a container-based model. Microsoft says the use of server-packed containers – known as Pre-Assembled Components (PACs) – will allow it to slash the cost of building its new data centers, which will have no roofs.
Optimized for Outdoors?
The Generation 4 container on display at PDC looks to be completely optimized for outdoor use, with a design that relies upon fresh air (”free cooling”) rather than air conditioning. While we’re not on-site at PDC and haven’t been able to inspect the container, it features louvers on the exterior of the container to draw fresh air into the cold aisle and expel hot air from the rear of the hot aisle.UPDATE: Microsoft’s Bob Muglia has more on the design. “ Ambient air is drawn over a membrane onto which a small amount of water is released,” Muglia tells InformationWeek. “I think it’s two gallons an hour. The slow release of water drops the temperature of ambient air coming in through a system of louvers by 20 or 25 degrees and that’s sufficient to keep the servers cool enough. ”
Here’s a look at a video of the container shot by a PDC attendee:
The container features the branding for Windows Azure, Microsoft’s developer-focused cloud computing platform. Windows Azure will run at facilities in Chicago, San Antonio, Dublin, Amsterdam, Singapore and Hong Kong.
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Microsoft Outlines Cloud Compliance Framework
October 28th, 2009 : Rich MillerWe’ve written previously about the challenges of regulatory compliance in a cloud computing environment. While this has been a concern for prospective cloud customers, compliance audits can keep data center providers busy as well. This week Microsoft Global Foundation Services (GFS), which builds and operates the company’s huge data centers, has published a white paper outlining Microsoft’s Compliance Framework for Online Services (PDF).
The 47-page paper document provides some details on Microsoft’s processes in organizing its compliance efforts, but also discusses the impact of compliance audits on staffing. “Our service delivery and operations teams found themselves spending increasing amounts of time responding to a variety of audits that often asked for the same types of information repeatedly over the course of a year,” writes Mark Estberg, the Senior Director of Risk and Compliance, on the GFS blog. “In addition, compliance obligations are increasing and becoming more complex as Microsoft moves into new markets and businesses and also as regulations and industry standards change.”
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Microsoft Begins Restoring Sidekick Data
October 20th, 2009 : Rich MillerMicrosoft says that after several weeks of effort to recover data from backup, it’s ready to begin restoring Sidekick user data, beginning with personal contacts.
“This data restoration effort is only necessary for the minority of customers who lost data from their Sidekick devices,” said this morning’s announcement. “Beginning today, log into the My T-Mobile website, where there will be a recovery tool to restore contacts you may have lost during the recent service outage. This tool will enable you to view the contacts you had on your device as of October 1. With a few clicks and a confirmation, you will be able to restore these contacts to your Sidekick. If you have recreated some of the same contacts on your Sidekick since October 1, you can choose to keep both sets of contacts, merge them, or just keep the set of contacts now on your device. You may also edit any partial or complete duplicates on your Sidekick after restoration.”
Microsoft is continuing the effort to restore Didekick users’ photographs, notes, to-do lists, marketplace data and high scores.
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Microsoft: The Sidekick Data is Back
October 15th, 2009 : Rich MillerFollowing several days of hints and rumors, Microsoft has confirmed that it has resurrected most of the Sidekick user data that was believed to be lost. The announcement marks a major turnaround in a story that has prompted widespread discussion about the reliability of cloud data storage. Microsoft says it now believes the data loss “affected a minority of Sidekick users.”
“We are pleased to report that we have recovered most, if not all, customer data for those Sidekick customers whose data was affected by the recent outage,” said Roz Ho, Microsoft’s Corporate Vice President for Premium Mobile Experiences. “We plan to begin restoring users’ personal data as soon as possible, starting with personal contacts, after we have validated the data and our restoration plan. We will then continue to work around the clock to restore data to all affected users, including calendar, notes, tasks, photographs and high scores, as quickly as possible.”
The recovery helps save face for Microsoft, but some analysts say that while Sidekick users will welcome the restoration of their contacts, many have already shifted their attention to other mobile devices and services.
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Photo Tour: A Container Data Center
October 1st, 2009 : Rich Miller
What does a container data center look like? We have additional photos of Microsoft’s new data center in Chicago, which is optimized for 40-foot data center containers holding thousands of servers each. Check out our photo tour of the new facility, which provides additional views of the “container canyon” and the high-density server configurations inside the containers, plus a link to video of a container being installed.NAVIGATION
- Inside Microsoft’s Chicago Data Center
- Center-Aisle Container
- Side-Aisle Container
- Power and Cooling Infrastructure
- Microsoft Chicago: The Road Ahead
