I’ve mentioned it here, and here, but finally there’s a real picture of their dense server designs, it looks pretty nice –
I haven’t tried to count, but there should be 96 servers per 57U rack (taller racks because they are in shipping containers), with integrated UPSs, and I am happy to see they are not placing all of their switches at the top of the rack as earlier diagrams seemed to indicate.
There you have it, the most innovative server/rack design in the industry, at least the most innovative that I have come across. Too bad they aren’t reselling these things to other companies.
We also get another indication on just how many jobs these data centers generate when they come to town (i.e. not many, certainly not enough worthy of tax breaks like Washington state was doing)
Microsoft will invest an additional $150 million to expand its new data center in southern Virginia,
[..]
The expansion will add 10 jobs, bringing the total expected employment in Boydton to 60 positions.
I see occasional references to how much jobs cost when the government tries to create them, here is a good contrast for those people making those comparisons – $15 million invested per job created (at least jobs measured at the end point).
Not surprising that it won’t add many long-term jobs. In a rural town of 500, how many IT specialists can there be? Once construction is done (I’m using outsourced labor anyway) how many on-site people does it really take to run the place? A couple of token security guards, some landscapers, etc. It doesn’t sound like it will be an open colo facility, so no remote hands, shipping/recieving, cabling guys, either.
Comment by Henry Stafford — February 5, 2013 @ 9:45 am