By now, you’ve heard a lot about the “Microsoft Cloud”. We’ve talked a lot about what is Windows Azure, the problems it solves, the business opportunities it presents, and even more so, implementation scenarios, security, privacy, etc. More recently, we’ve also talked about the same with respect to Office 365. But there’s one aspect of Windows Azure that has always been a mystery to most – what’s underneath the hood of Windows Azure?

I thought I would share something that is completely not related any of those but has crossed the mind of many at least once. You’ve probably asked yourself, “When applications are deployed to Windows Azure, where do they go?” or perhaps “What kind of infrastructure is required to run Office 365?”.

The following video should be able to answer those questions for you as it takes you on a tour of a few of Microsoft’s data centres and shows you how Microsoft’s Global Foundation Services Team, the team that designs, builds, operates, and secures Microsoft’s Cloud infrastructure, delivers all of the things that Windows Azure promises its users:

High Availability Reliability Smart Scalability
High Efficiency Sustainability Secure and Trusted Cloud
 
Microsoft GFS Datacenter Tour
 
 
Dive Deeper
 
The video in-and-of-itself is fascinating, but if, like me, you’re now intrigued even more. Dileep Bhandarkar, a distinguished engineer at Global Foundation Services dives deeper into the details of the data center. Read >>

Share Your Thoughts

What did you think of the video? Does the tour and the transparency that Microsoft is providing make you feel more comfortable about deploying your applications and data to the Cloud or using hosted applications in the Cloud? Share your thoughts in the comments below.