1. Engineer the data center for cost and energy efficiency.
Microsoft’s approach to designing a data center is to look at the building as if it were a big computer that must run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. Computers work best when they are tailored to the specific needs of their users. The same principle applies to data center design; the most resource-efficient designs meet the requirements of the data center’s users and specific site conditions.
Microsoft continually evaluates many different technologies for power distribution, cooling systems, and server rack/container systems. To optimize the data center environment, Microsoft uses tools like Computational Fluid Dynamics to test different configurations.