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Microsoft *officially* announced its plans for the $500 million West Des Moines data center it is building.

Here are some details…
- “Next Generation” facility
- 50-75 workers at $70k annual salary
- 42 acres in West Des Moines (see map below)
- Construction to be completed in 12-18 months

Why Iowa?
- Tax Incentives
- Cheap Land
- Very (relatively) affordable power
- Cheap Labor (lower costs of living here mean lower relative wages)
- Fiber Backbone (the very UNDER-UTILIZED ICN Network)
- Central Geographic Location

Overall, there are up to and over 35 factors in data center site selection of this magnitude including what I mentioned above.

What’s a “Next Generation Facility”?
So what is this next generation facility going to power? As more and more of the web and business moves into “the cloud”, the need for an infrastructure to keep up demands new data centers. Microsoft is in a position where it’s taking many of its traditional platforms and and software into the “SaaS” model - or Software as Services. So when the next version of Microsoft Word comes out - it will be via a web browser, online. To power this next wave, Microsoft needs to build up its infrastructure. To get a handle on the challenge ahead of Microsoft, here are some numbers:

Microsoft challenges:
- 15x growth on servers
- 9x growth on egress
- 15x growth on power
- 3x growth on number of data centers
via DataCenterLinks

This “next-gen” facility will be different than the traditional data center, supposedly using the “container” model they have been working on. Basically a container is a semi-trailer (or shipping container that you see on barges and trains). Within this container are 1,000 - 2,000 servers. These containers are, literally, trailers that can be hauled in via trucks to scale the system. Microsoft has built a similar data center in Chicago that has two floors. Currently, the entire first floor is made up of 150-200 of these containers.

So basically what happens is a truck loaded with a “container” will pull into the facility, drop off the container, “plug it in” and turn it on. Bam! This container based data center often times can hold up to 11 times more servers than a traditional data center using the same amount of space.

Here’s a 3-D Demo of the Chicago Data Center - and what is likely coming to West Des Moines…

So where’s this going to be?

View Larger Map

Technorati Tags: west des moines, data center, microsoft, iowa

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