Learning More About the Amazon Data Center

Perhaps many of you didn’t know yet of the data center owned by Amazon.com you have known for years. The company has skillfully designed its data center in the heart of Seattle. Amazon owned a cloud computing platform. But during the recent open house in Seattle, Mr James Hamilton, talked about how the company’s data center was built many years ago. Hamilton was known as a distinguished AWS engineer. During the said activity, Hamilton presents to the audience the company’s present infrastructure.

His presentation was very clear as it is being presented on a PDF format supported by photos and other diagrams which explains the current operation and load of the company’s data center, as far as the company’s business data and other applications. It also presented to the audience an image of Amazon’s modular design for its data center. This is the first considered official acknowledgement of the company to have used modular infrastructure. The report also showed a factoid showing rapid growth of the Amazon’s cloud platform.

“Every day Amazon Web Services adds enough new capacity to support all of Amazon.com’s global infrastructure through the company’s first 5 years, when it was a $2.76 billion annual revenue enterprise,” Hamilton states in one of the slides. The reported rapid growth of the company made it acquire additional sites in other areas such as in Oregon, northern Virginia and Ireland. These areas are being considered for the company’s data center expansion.

Hamilton is known to be using cost models for the company’s hyper-scale data centers. In fact, during his review at the Amazon open house, he made cost assumptions of 8 megawatt data center, including 46,000 servers. He estimated the cost to reach around $88 million and showed a chart outlining the operating cost of the data centers dominated by servers which is around 57 percent. His report was consistent with his recently-published cost on operating the company’s data centers. Many of those who attended the open house were glad with the success of the company because it is able to expand its operations despite many companies in the US are faced with challenges due to recession.

Amazon.com has now become a respected leader in online business due to its growing number of clients and affiliates all over the globe. Many also of the bloggers around the world were among those who benefited from the company’s affiliate program.