By Mark Estberg, Senior Director, Online Services Security & Compliance Customers need to know that their cloud provider(s) are being responsible with the applications and data they entrust to them, while also being mindful of their requirements...

We are pleased to announce our web site and blog are now located on one site that is hosted on our Windows Azure platform! You can find the latest insights, customer priorities and news about Global Foundation Services . Don't forget to re-subscribe...

Yesterday, Microsoft announced a significant step to reduce our environmental footprint by committing to achieve carbon neutrality by 2012. As the team that operates our cloud infrastructure, Global Foundation Services (GFS) will be instrumental in achieving...

This week, the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency (EPA) released a list of the Top 50 Green Power Partnership organizations, listing Microsoft as the third largest purchaser of green power. The EPA evaluates organizations voluntarily using clean, renewable...

By Christian Belady, General Manager of Data Center Services Question. Why do data centers need to be connected to a dirty, expensive, unreliable electrical grid? Answer. They don’t and they don’t want to be either. Integrating a data center...

Attributed to: Christian Belady, General Manager of Data Center Services & Vijay Gill, Senior Director of Network Engineering When Microsoft delivered its first online service back in 1994, the cloud was still a relatively undefined, evolving space...

By Dileep Bhandarkar, Ph. D, Distinguished Engineer Global Foundation Services, Microsoft Last week, we announced an addition of 112,000 square feet and 13.2 MW of cloud computing power to our Dublin data center. This facility and one in Amsterdam...

Cross posted from the Software Enabled Earth blog Today IDG’s Computerworld named Microsoft as one of the top green IT organization as part of its annual Top Green-IT Organizations feature. Of the seventy organizations that participated in the...

Today we are transferring our $ multi-million water treatment plant to city of Quincy, WA By: Christian Belady, General Manager of Data Center Advanced Development Around the globe, water is becoming a scarcer and more valuable commodity, and that’s...

Microsoft’s Trustworthy Computing team just launched their new blog site , where you can find an on-going discussion on trustworthy cloud computing at Microsoft and throughout the industry. The goal of this new blog is to give readers a look...

By Dileep Bhandarkar, Ph. D. Distinguished Engineer Global Foundation Services, Microsoft Today our team is releasing a video tour of four of Microsoft’s global datacenters. The video provides an inside look at how the company has invested heavily...

By Dileep Bhandarkar, Ph.D. Distinguished Engineer Global Foundation Services, Microsoft In late 2007 we were intrigued by the opportunity of deploying servers in ISO (shipping) containers. Our analysis showed that we could pack as many as 2500...

By Christian Belady General Manager of Datacenter Advanced Development Sustainability is an interesting thing. It really means so many things to so many people but I really like the way it is defined in Wikipedia; “Sustainability is the capacity...

By Christian Belady General Manager, Data Center Research, Global Foundation Services As the demand for cloud services continues to grow, there are many companies in the datacenter industry (particularly start-ups) that have met with me to discuss...

By Charlie McNerney, GM, Business Management, GFS On Friday, March 11th, 2011, a magnitude 8.9 earthquake hit Japan followed by a series of tsunamis, causing widespread damage. In response, Microsoft activated its Disaster Response protocol. We are...

By Kevin Timmons, General Manager of Datacenter Services I’m pleased to announce that we are continuing with our strong global environmental sustainability efforts in our cloud infrastructure by signing a contract to purchase renewable wind power...

Datacenter Efficiency By Dileep Bhandarkar, Ph.D. Distinguished Engineer Global Foundation Services, Microsoft Datacenters have captured the attention of the computing industry over the last few years, fueled mainly by the tremendous growth in cloud...

By Christian Belady General Manager, Data Center Research, Global Foundation Services Many of you may have already heard that I have change roles yet again in Microsoft. It was only 11 months ago that I had moved to Microsoft Research to pursue...

By Kevin Timmons, General Manager of Datacenter Services It’s an exciting time for Microsoft’s datacenter program. In addition to operating one of the largest global datacenter footprints in the industry, we have been super busy working...

By Dileep Bhandarkar, Ph. D. Distinguished Engineer Global Foundation Services, Microsoft A little over three years ago, I joined Microsoft to lead the hardware engineering team that helped decide which servers Microsoft would purchase to run its...

Last week, at the 6 th Data Centres Europe 2010 Conference, our Dublin datacenter received a prestigious award for being the Best European Enterprise Datacenter Facility . The Dublin datacenter incorporates a free air cooling design and is one of the...

Today, Microsoft won a prestigious Green Enterprise IT Award from the Uptime Institute for the bold IT initiatives we utilized in our recently opened datacenter in Chicago. The facility integrates new design solutions which have led to greater efficiencies...

By John Dwyer – International Datacentre Manager The 40th anniversary of Earth Day is a very appropriate time to reflect on the aggressive sustainability objectives that Microsoft has for the Dublin datacentre and the great progress we’ve made so...

By Kevin Timmons General Manager of Datacenter Services The datacenter industry is at an inflection point. We need the ability to build out “at right scale” based on capacity needs at unprecedented price points. Oh by the way - it’s also imperative...

By Christian Belady Director of Hardware Architecture, Microsoft Research Some folks have already heard that I am changing roles in Microsoft, but the reality is that just like the evolution with our data centers, my career is going through a...