New data centers online in July

Microsoft (like Google) does not talk much about it’s data centers so I was surprised to find a that a blog from the Microsoft Infrastructure Services team.  The latest blog post briefly describe the newest data centers that are located in Chicago and Dublin and the fact that they will go live in July.

It’s also one of the first time that I see a description of their container strategy:

Two-thirds of the Chicago data center is optimized for housing containerized servers. Containers conserve energy and will help us realize new advancements in power efficiency with a PUE yearly average calculated at 1.22. These prepackaged units (with up to 1,800 to 2,500 servers each) can be wheeled into the facility and made operational within hours, so they represent important advances in the ability to quickly and efficiently provision capacity. The density inside the containers can exceed 10 times that of traditional data centers.

Here’s a picture of the Chicago data center: