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Microsoft vs. Google — spot the greener company

Oct 30, 2008 Information of the Day

Future data centers?

It looks like the rivalry between Google and Microsoft is becoming even more intense as the two tech giants take their battle to a new front beyond the internet, mobile phone and office suite: data center efficiency! Both recently came up with impressive claims for their efficiency in managing their data center’s power requirements.

Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) — a measure determined by dividing the amount of input power by the power required to run the computer infrastructure within a data center is the commonly used metric for efficiency. A PUE of 1 is ideal, but considered non-attainable. This standard was originally put in place by The Green Grid, an IT consortium dedicated to advancing energy efficiency in data centers and business computing ecosystems. Both Microsoft and Google have made significant strides on that score. According to Datacenter Knowledge, Google has recently released its previously undisclosed report on extreme efficiency, while Microsoft touted similar gains with its own ultra efficient container-clad servers.

Microsoft says it is installing new servers contained within 40-foot shipping containers at its Chicago data center.  It says its new containers are ultra-efficient, sporting a PUE of 1.22, according to Microsoft’s Mike Manos.  This comes close to Google’s average PUE of 1.21 at its six company-built data centers, which it was recently bragging about, while industry average is about 2.5.

Why is this important? According to a survey by AMD in 2007, the IT related electrical bills for U.S. companies totaled $2.7 billion. The cost of electricity for the entire world topped $7 billion. Within the United States, the total cost of powering data center servers represented about 0.6 percent of total electrical use within the country. When the additional costs of cooling and other usage is factored in, that number jumps to 1.2 percent.

The Northlake, Illinois data center has just completed its first phase of construction in what will be a $550M USD project yielding a 500,000 square-foot facility. Each 40-foot container, like those used on ships, can house 2,500 servers, a density 10 times that of a normal data center.  The first floor alone is intended to house 150 to 220 containers, meaning that the first floor alone could hold 375,000 and 550,000 servers.  Google has not yet announced figures on the number of servers in its data centers, but it is expected to be perhaps even greater.

Mr. Manos bragged of the center’s efficiency, stating an average PUE of 1.22 with an AVERAGE ANNUAL PEAK PUE of 1.36. While Microsoft’s numbers may be very impressive, and well ahead of much of the industry, that sports PUE’s of around 2.5, they still fall short of Google’s.  Google has reported that it has one data center with an average PUE of 1.13.

Google has indicated that its data centers may be built using containers as well. Google also recently filed patents for floating data centers which harness wave energy for meeting power consumption and cooling needs.

Here is some more interesting stuff!

Tags: data centers, Google, Green Computing, Microsoft