The Microsoft Cloud, Online and Windows Live services are about to get a boost in terms of support with the Redmond company gearing up to open two new mega data centers, according to Arne Josefsberg, general manager of Infrastructure Services, Global Foundation Services. The new facilities are located in Dublin and Chicago, and are both scheduled to start operating come July 2009. In fact, operations at the Dublin data center will debut on July 1st, 2009. The two new facilities have been built in accordance with Microsoft's generation 3 data center strategy, focused on boosting efficiency and environmental sustainability.

“The Dublin, Ireland, data center is our first mega data center built outside of the United States. This building covers 303,000 square feet, with 5.4 mega watts of critical power available now. Over time, the data center can expand to a total of 22.2 mega watts of critical power, growing with our business and customer demand. The facility makes extensive use of outside air economization to cool the facility year round, resulting in greater power efficiency with a resultant reduction in carbon footprint,” Josefsberg explained.

Data centers are a key component of the software giant's Cloud strategy. In the post-Gates era Microsoft has committed to a Software plus Services business strategy, and the new facilities going online in Dublin and Chicago will deliver additional support for its long-term goals. The data center located in Chicago, Illinois is double the size of that in Dublin, at 700,000 square feet, reaching no less than 60 megawatts of critical power.

“Phase 1 represents 30 mega watts of critical power and the rest is pre-positioned for future growth. 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,” Josefsberg added.