Microsoft Data Centers

I was all set to write a wonderful blog post enticing Microsoft to decide on Des Moines for their next data center .... extolling about how wonderful Iowa is, how Des Moines was recently listed as one of the best cities to live in and numerous other reasons. The very next day they confirmed that they had indeed (re)selected West Des Moines for the site. I like to tell myself that they just didn't want to see me grovel.

So now -- I'll write to THANK Microsoft for the uber-wise decision to locate in West Des Moines....and then THANK them again for placing the uber-cool fourth generation data center design in West Des Moines!

I was fortunate enough to talk with the Principal Power Systems Architect, eXtreme Computing Group at Microsoft - Shaun Harris this past week (check out my Blue Waters post btw) and he elaborated on the latest revision of the 4th generation design. This means the concept I saw was only a few revisions behind the actual 4th generation design. Shaun also told me numerous company secrets that I just can't blog on. :)

Continuing on the Microsoft path -- I ran across this Burlington, NC story on a large company possibly building a "data storage center" in North Carolina. The story mentions an investment in the billions and speculation has automatically gone to Microsoft. Data Center Knowledge reported back in May that Microsoft was deciding between southern Virginia and Western North Carolina. Apple and Google already have North Carolina sites, so the only other 'large' company with that kind of clout and the need to build data centers (in my mind) would be Amazon.

The only reason I think it would not be Microsoft is because of their fourth generation design -- it seems like that design would not require an investment that large. However, the investment they made in Dublin was fairly large -- maybe North Carolina will also be a hybrid indoor/outdoor data center.

Ok - so one last plea to Microsoft: forget North Carolina, Virginia or wherever ... just double or triple the size of the West Des Moines facility and call it good!