Microsoft Research Introduces Record-Beating MinuteSort Tech

mikejuk writes "A team from Microsoft Research has taken the lead in the MinuteSort data sorting test using a specially-devised technology: Flat DataCenter Storage. The figures are impressive — 1401 gigabytes in 60 seconds, using 1033 disks across 250 machines. Not only is this three times as much as the previous record, but also, it uses only one sixth of the hardware resources, according to a blog post about the test from Microsoft. One thing that's interesting about the success is the technology used. While solutions such as Hadoop and MapReduce are traditionally used for working with large data sets, Microsoft Research created its own technology called the 'Flat Datacenter Storage,' or FDS for short. This isn't just academic research, of course. The team from Microsoft Research has already been working with the Bing team to help Bing accelerate its search results, and there are plans to use it in other Microsoft technologies."

Comments

This is what I like about Microsoft

[Asksa]

Their support for research and innovation is top-notch. They are pretty much the only one of the large companies that fund this kind of research and they fund it with billions. Their work does lots of good for the world. Good job guys.

Re:This is what I like about Microsoft

[Asksa]

Wouldn't GoOooogle also fit into that category?

Google doesn't really innovate or do any research. The closest you get is the 20% time they give to engineers (note that not for other personnel). In fact, the only real products Google has made in-house are their search engine and gmail. Everything else (YouTube, Google Earth, Maps, Android) have been buy-outs of startups or copied, like Google+.

Re:This is what I like about Microsoft

[znrt]

I'd say C#, F#, and ClearType are pretty big contributions

thanks for sparing me the time to check out most of the items in that list, most of which i had never heard of. i quickly looked up cleartype and it turns out that those ms-r&d guys ... just invented font anti-aliasing! 20ish years late, but nobody is perfect. but anyway if you consider that c# is a contribution to the world (and a big one for that matter) then the rest should be pretty irrelevant junk.

c#!!! ye gods & little fishes. the only thing c# has contributed to the world is largely replacing vd, thus keeping existing dev-base around, thus maintaining windows' sale figures. contribution in regards of academic research would be next to zero. in fact there's is no single concept in whole .net that was radically new, its just known stuff wrapped together with commercial purpose. it has indeed extensive application, but that doesn't mean it is crucial for that applications to exist. it just means royalties and licenses go to ms instead of others. this contributed to microsoft, not the world. your citation is invalid, try again. :)