Imagine stepping into a realm where the cloud meets cutting-edge technology, revealing the inner workings behind servers, fiber optic network cables, operations, physical datacenter buildings, and the most advanced AI infrastructure. This is Microsoft’s Virtual Datacenter Tour, where customers can explore the infrastructure and datacenter design that powers over 60 datacenter regions and 300 plus datacenters globally. In addition to our cloud infrastructure’s scale and breadth, customers will be able to interpret their own perception behind what makes our cloud infrastructure reliable, sustainable, trusted, and innovative.
So, what are datacenters?
Datacenters provide the infrastructure for the technology we rely on in our daily lives, from online banking and remote work to video calls and social media. They power the cloud, enabling us to store files, join meetings, access critical healthcare or financial data, and work on documents from anywhere, on any device. The cloud is a globally interconnected network of millions of computers in datacenters around the world that work together to store and manage data, run applications, and deliver content and services.
Microsoft’s datacenters house thousands of servers, working around the clock to ensure your information is always available. Even during unexpected events, skilled technicians maintain operations with backup systems and redundancy. Our extensive network of secure datacenters across dozens of countries ensures services are close to where you access the cloud, and our footprint continues to grow to meet customer demand. Learn more about how Microsoft datacenters are powering our daily lives.
How can I tour a Microsoft datacenter?
We wish we could invite all of our customers to visit one of our datacenter regions, but this presents prohibitive security, safety, and staffing issues. Instead, we decided we’d bring our datacenter to you. The tour enables you to come and go with flexibility.
Our virtual datacenter tour is a microsite that offers an immersive 3-dimensional self-guided virtual journey that will allow you to interact with Microsoft’s datacenters firsthand. Virtual visitors will learn about the infrastructure required to design, build, and operate our datacenters, the renewable energy that powers them, and the hardware and software that keep data secure.
One highlight of the tour offers a glimpse of the future of cloud computing. The innovation room in our virtual datacenter tour allows you to explore recent innovations like Microsoft’s zero-water cooling datacenter design, which eliminates water use in datacenter cooling through advanced technologies, and Majorana 1, the world’s first quantum chip powered by a topological core.
This tour provides a sneak peek into how Microsoft is enabling millions of customers to run critical and advanced workloads, including AI and quantum computing, while paving the way for future innovations. Visitors can take the tour via a personal computer or mobile device.
Take a walk with us into the cloud
We are continuously enhancing the virtual datacenter tour with new rooms, content, and experiences to elevate each virtual visit.
First, we are excited to announce the integration of a virtual assistant powered by the Azure Open AI service, designed to answer the many questions you may have. As you walk through the datacenter, you will be greeted by an AI assistant offering real-time support during your tour, answering datacenter-specific questions, and offering detailed insights about our datacenter operations. Whether you are interested in our Microsoft Cloud infrastructure sustainability practices, air cooling technologies, datacenter security, resiliency capabilities, or the global reach of our datacenters, our AI assistant is here to guide you every step of the way.
Explore the server room and learn about our latest hardware, including Azure Cobalt, our in-house CPU powering general compute offerings, and Azure Maia, our custom AI accelerator optimized for AI workloads. We also have long-standing partnerships with industry leaders like NVIDIA, AMD, and Intel to ensure a diverse set of hardware is available on Azure. This enables us to deliver the right mix of performance, efficiency, and cost to our customers.
New to our server room is our hot aisle experience. Microsoft’s datacenter hot aisle design optimizes cooling efficiency by isolating hot air from servers into a single, dedicated aisle, ensuring peak performance and energy savings. At over a scorching 100 degrees, the unique isolation of hot air ensures a consistent temperature, boosts cooling efficiency, reduces energy consumption, and cuts operational costs. Find out how we manage a consistent temperature in our server room by ejecting, and even reusing, the heat generated from these servers.
If you step outside into the mechanical area, you will be met with a breadth of Microsoft-designed datacenter power and cooling technologies. From the outside, you will also see an array of electrical equipment, such as batteries and backup generators, required to power the datacenter in the event of a power failure. Batteries and generators play a key role in enabling us to deliver continuity of service. For each megawatt of datacenter capacity, we generally have just over one megawatt of battery backup and generator backup to make sure the datacenters can meet our service levels and operational reliability. Longer term, Microsoft’s goal is to use more low-carbon fuels, batteries, or even hydrogen fuel cells for backup generators.
Outside, you will also learn how we cool our datacenter to ensure the reliability of the hardware running inside. If it gets too hot indoors, servers can start failing. To keep this from happening, we use adiabatic cooling and free air cooling. Adiabatic and free air cooling are highly efficient methods of cooling datacenters. Adiabatic cooling uses water evaporation rather than mechanical air conditioning, while free air cooling takes advantage of natural weather elements to control the temperature. Both methods significantly reduce water and power usage. Learn more about Azure modern datacenter cooling.
Visit our Virtual Datacenter Tour today
This Virtual Datacenter Tour emphasizes Microsoft’s commitment to enabling advanced workloads and future innovations. Experience a more interactive and informative tour with our cutting-edge AI technology and updated unique design capabilities to understand how Microsoft is at the forefront of the future of cloud computing.
Experience the Virtual Datacenter Tour today.
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