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Microsoft Mulling Portable Data Centers

Posted by Zonk on from the call-me-when-they-make-them-luggable dept.

1sockchuck writes "An architect of the Windows Live team has published a presentation advocating portable container-based data centers as the future of data center infrastructure. James Hamilton, who previously was GM of Microsoft Exchange Hosted Services, contends that a distributed network of unmanned modular units 'transforms data centers from static and costly behemoths into inexpensive and portable lightweights. ... Multiple smaller data centers, regionally located, could prove to be a competitive advantage.' Both Sun and Rackable have rolled out prototypes of container-based 'data center in a box' products, and Hamilton notes that large generators are also available in trailers."

6 of 137 comments (clear)

  1. Re:Google? by HomelessInLaJolla · · Score: 4, Funny

    I recall reading something about enormous Borg like Google cubes requiring cities to build nuclear fusion reactors to power them, competing with Fermilab and LLNL for Most Brownouts Caused by Powerup, and being airlifted into remote regions of the world to hide classified data.

    --
    the NPG electrode was replaced with carbon blac
  2. Borg by jeevesbond · · Score: 4, Funny

    This takes Microsoft one step closer to becoming the Borg. Just wait until one of these mobile data-centre 'cubes' appears outside a rival software company, the voice of Ballmer comes booming out of a loudspeaker: 'We are Microsoft. Open your doors and surrender your intellectual property. We will take your technological innovation and call it our own. Your culture will adapt to service ours. Resistance is futile.'

    In fact, didn't I see one parked-up outside Novell HQ recently?

    --
    I'm going to transform myself into a mighty hawk. Either that or I'll just go and work at Dixons, haven't decided yet.
    1. Re:Borg by MillionthMonkey · · Score: 4, Funny

      Mobile data centers are nothing new for Microsoft. I know a guy who drove a Luxury Car (forget what kind) and this car was sooooo wonderful it needed an operating system: Windows CE.

      It didn't broadcast Bill Gates speeches on the road, but it had the same problem as all Microsoft software- features you didn't ask for, that don't work, that can't easily be removed or disabled. He would park this thing in his garage, and once a month some process would turn on at 3 AM to condition the battery or something silly. It would crash midway through and he kept waking up in the morning to a BSOD and a dead battery powering the dim blue glow of the pixels with its last gasp.

      He kept having to take his car to the shop for patches. We loved hearing about this stuff at work, because the car always crashed for something different, but he was getting sick of it, like everyone else at the dealership. Finally one day it screwed something up again- left his windshield washer pump going all night or something- and he took it in for the last patch. The ride home was Linux powered and the fun stories came to an end.

  3. whoa, slow down there! by hxnwix · · Score: 5, Funny

    Portable data centers? They can't even get portable music players right!

  4. Re:Imagine a... by Penguinisto · · Score: 4, Funny
    ...Grendel Cluster? Thor Cluster? Loki Cluster? What? C'mon man, throw us a line here!

    (stop staring at me like that).

    /P

    --
    Quo usque tandem abutere, Nimbus, patientia nostra?
  5. Unmanned? by cxreg · · Score: 4, Funny

    Who's going to reboot the machines every other day?

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    God Fucking Damnit