It’s probably safe to bet that all of Microsoft’s online operations doesn’t run off a single server in the basement of Gates’ house (on the other hand Apple’s MobileMe might actually be running in Jobs’ basement), so how many servers do Microsoft actually have? Microsoft never says and no one seems to know for sure except the few numbers thrown around including a notable “10,000 new servers a month“, however, a recent promotional video produced by Microsoft’s Environmental Sustainability group may have accidentally spilled the beans.
The following screencaps are from taken from the video Q&A with Rob Bernard, Chief Environmental Strategist, at 2min 29sec to 2min 35sec for those of you playing at home.
Some quick stats gathered from the above clippings: 15 datacenters hosting 148,357 servers sitting on 17,406 racks consuming 72,500KW of utility power as of the end of January 2008 (as indicated by the bar chart). If you’re a bit of a imperial measurement person, that’s 97,000 horsepower. So the next time you visit Live Search, think of the horses.
On the same page there’s also an interesting graph showing the distribution of servers per “property”. Live Search is in the clear lead with approximately 75,000 (50%) of the servers pushing out those less-than-desirable search results, followed by Hotmail. The other notable property occupying a large chunk of the servers would be “other” (appropriately named), which one could assume be dedicated to XBOX Live services and the like.
Assuming these statistics are real and accurate, then at the growth rate of 10,000 servers a month Microsoft should be at 218,000 servers at the end of August 08. A mind-blowing number. They’re going to need more horses.
18 Comments
Jared
But how many Libraries of Congress is that?
Avatar
Wow.. totally awesome scoop Long.
fiji
Holy. That is a insane amount about servers. Do they even need that much horsepower? How big “is” Bill Gates basement?
bluvg
I love the horsepower comparison.
Wouter Devinck
Good story, awesome presentation (love the horses :p). You’re the best!
Avatar
@fiji: just consider microsoft update. it is the biggest software updating system in the world. then imagine Live ID with its 350 million registrations, then hotmail, etc,etc,etc.
Yert
Lets hope we get a few more servers for LIVE, a few more for Live Mesh, a few more for the kitchen sink and a few more FiOS connections (on my end… I AM LOOKING AT YOU VERIZON! COME TO ARIZONA YOU BASTARDS!!!) to support the extra speed.
Peter Ortner
They’ll also need more Windows Server licenses (glad I’m not paying for them!).
Chaps
I wonder how long it will be before they are consuming 1.21 Gigawatts of power?
Sumesh
Interesting find about servers.
@Peter Ortner: MS probably uses Linux for most of its servers, seeing as how anyone with common sense knows that Linux is better than Windows server for stability, security and performance reasons (forget those stupid MS ads with ridiculous claims).
stuart
As it would appear that the other category has nigh on 40,000 servers, why in the name of sweet baby Blesus is xboxlive so god damn slow,
I realise that Other could include any number of services but surely XboxLive has to be a fair portion of that number
Ad Manager
Wow, SCRY just sounds like scary! 220k servers and I wonder how many people man those servers.
Mahmoud H. Al-Qudsi
Nice catch there, Long!
Impressive numbers indeed. 200k could be either a whole lot or very little depending on how they’re actually split and used… and now w/ virtualization coming of age, numbers could soon turn very deceiving!
Rob
Of course it pales in comparison to Google, especially considering MS has only 8% of the search market. But I agree with Sumesh above. I know Microsoft runs Linux and I wonder how much of that, if not all of it, might just be LInux.
LaSean
@Rob — Can you point us to your data source for the comparison to Google?
Sam
Never wish to visit live search (I’ve tried and it sucked) so I never have to worry about those poor, retarded horses that think microsoft.com has something to do with linux.
dhan
Your article appears word-for-word and uncredited, over here : http://www.vgwatchdog.com/?p=35
Long Zheng
@dhan: Happens, a lot
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