Bringing the Cloud Down to Earth

With all the talk about Windows Azure and hosting your application in the “cloud”, it’s easy to forget that somewhere there’s a computer, or perhaps thousands, that are actually running your application.

There’s a fascinating write-up and photo series on CNET about the new Microsoft data center in Chicago.  Here are some of the cool facts I lifted from the article (with some help from Wolfram Alpha) followed by a video interview featuring Daniel Costello and Christian Belady of Microsoft.

• 700,000 sq. ft. – 20% larger than the base of the Great Pyramid of Giza, or roughly 11 soccer fields

• 30 megawatts of capacity – that’s over 40000 horses, enough to power up to 10,000 American homes (but still only 1/400th of the power of generated at a Space Shuttle launch!)

• 7.5 miles of piping for cooling (via chilled water) – the length of which exceeds both the highest (Mount Everest) and lowest points on the earth (The Challenger Deep in the Mariana Trench).