Microsoft's Data Center in a box…more details emerge

Welcome to Microsoft’s data centre evolution (previously called the “Generation 4 vision”). As earlier videos have shown, we’re heading towards the pre-manufacturing every part of the data centre: the IT, mechanical and electrical components as part of Pre-Assembled Components that we call an “ITPAC.” We placed one of these outside the University of Washington recently during Steve Ballmer’s cloud talk.

This pre assembled approach gives us more flexible deployment options in both speed and location for our data centres, plus it helps with environmental sustainability. All we’ll need in future is a concrete pad to land these things and the crucial Power Usage Effectiveness measure will be as low as 1.15 to 1.19. The units will house somewhere between 400 to 2,500 servers and could be built by a single person in as little as 4 days. I have ordered the parts to test this and plan to set one up in my garden (joke). 

Read more from Kevin Timmons on the MS datacenters blog