Ballmer: Microsoft Has 1 Million Servers in Datacenters, Only Second to Google | Hacker News Reader

Ballmer: Microsoft Has 1 Million Servers in Datacenters, Only Second to Google

wind8apps.com

11 pointsRaduTyrsina30 comments

So many errors with that article. And a few spelling mistakes too. I think people are better off going straight to the source instead of reading a poorly written re-interpretation of the source: http://www.zdnet.com/microsoft-million-server-datacenters-70...

I just love it how you folks always give it to the "zero spelling mistakes" website and all. You're simply giving no chance to other websites to evolve. I gave that source because they were first, not because they were exclusive.

and it wasn't a reinterpretation of that source only.

> "I just love it how you folks always give it to the "zero spelling mistakes" website and all. You're simply giving no chance to other websites to evolve. I gave that source because they were first, not because they were exclusive."

I'm all for promoting smaller websites. In fact I manage a few myself. However I don't see why people should read an article that's just a rewording of someone else's article, where there's no individual research going on, and where it also manages to get the fundamental core of the article completely wrong (ie the scale of Microsoft's serving infrastructure). That's inexcusable given the whole point of news items is to inform / educate the readers.

I was happy to ignore how poorly written the content was as I assumed that either English isn't your first language or that you're dyslexic. As someone who's dyslexic myself - I completely sympathise with how hard formal writing can be. And if you are either of the aforementioned, then I think it's credit that you're not letting it hold you back. However it costs all of 2 minutes to run a spell checker and the improvement that has on the overall "feel" of the article is massive.

*> "and it wasn't a reinterpretation of that source only."

I labelled it as such because of the factual errors present in yours that didn't exist in the original. In essence, you read the original, then rewrote it as you interpreted it.

I understand you're getting a lot of criticism and I sympathize, but if you're going to make comments about what it means to be a journalist, you should probably have someone proofreading your articles. There are some pretty distracting errors in your writing, such as words missing from sentences, etc. Also, if you don't know the difference between a server and a datacenter you should be very careful when writing articles about the state of the industry. Spreading false information without doing due diligence to be informed is irresponsible. Again, I sympathize with all the criticism that's headed your way, but you would do well to not respond too defensively and to learn from this experience.

Thanks! Please read above, I always check my articles. This time, it was just unexpected for me :)

This is just a friendly warning, but I've noticed you've got an error on your about page[1] as well. You have the same paragraph posted twice inside itself (I'm guessing that's just a copy and paste error?).

I can see what you're trying to do - and genuinely wish you the best of luck for your site. But since sites such as those are very common already, you really cannot afford to make silly little mistakes like those as you'll risk putting off potential repeat visitors. So I'd recommend giving most of your site a re-read before posting future content.

[1] http://wind8apps.com/about/

Thanks for the time you took to correct me

Indeed, the were some errors inside the piece that I almost never make

My mistake was to write and then submit it here, NOT KNOWING NOR EXPECTING that it would get so quickly picked up on the front page.

Quicker than I realized, I was confronted with the mistake I made, without having time to re-examine the article again.

And yes, I did research. Initially, I wanted to write something about Microsoft's focus on the cloud and then I found this piece - http://rcpmag.com/blogs/scott-bekker/2013/07/wpc-microsoft-1..., which is 3 days old, so, most likely, that is the initial source, but not Zdnet.

Then, I linked Microsoft's focus on cloud with the expansion in Iowa + another article with a funny, side fact - http://www.greenm3.com/gdcblog/2013/7/11/microsofts-new-orga...

then, I found this one - http://www.datacenterknowledge.com/archives/2013/07/10/micro...

Therefore, I stand for my work and I accept the errors that I made but please don't label my effort that quickly

> "My mistake was to write and then submit it here, NOT KNOWING NOR EXPECTING that it would get so quickly picked up on the front page.

> "Quicker than I realized, I was confronted with the mistake I made, without having time to re-examine the article again."

I hate to say this, but the title drew a lot of attention because of it being inaccurate. eg I clicked the link because my thought was "wow - that can't be true. I wonder where all these data centres are and how big they are". I'd guess many others did the same - which is why someone accused the article as linkbait.

I think this is one of those occasions that need to be chalked down as "experience". And a good reminder to all of us to proof read the stuff we post online. :)

Definitely,

I was so damn surprised, man!

The last story I had on the front page was like 6 months ago so I said to become active again and thought timing was crucial with this one.

I got the timing right :D

What I want to ask is this, with the current title, would it have been as "baiting"? I mean, did it have a chance of getting on the front page with the actual title? Because if it did, then it's too bad :(

The original / incorrect title was definitely more interesting than the new / correct version. It's no surprise to me that Microsoft have a number of data centres and a million servers seems believable. But the original title was so far fetched that I was fascinated to read how the numbers were comprised.

But going back to your original question, I wouldn't like to say if you'd have made the front page or not. It would have been less likely - but there's still a possibility enough people might have been interested to up-vote it. If I'm honest, I wouldn't have - but then I didn't up-vote your incorrect title either as I read then vote; and once I spotted the issues, I was put off voting - sorry :(

I've never really understood what drives articles to the front page though. I've read some cracking news items that failed to gain more than a couple of votes but equally I've read some extremely dull articles (and even Twitter statuses) that have made it. I guess it just shows how individual we all are.

Thanks again!

what doesn't kill me, makes me stronger!

I expect you'll visit my website often, now that you've contributed to its success :)

I don't think the author knows what a datacenter is

I know, and so does Steve Ballmer, I assume

From your article:

We have something over a million servers in our datacenter infrastructure

They do not have a million data centers, they have a combined million servers in their datacenters.

I understand the difference now, thank you!

It seems like you're still a bit confused. These might help: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datacenter http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Server_(computing)

"We know that the Redmond company has recently announced that they are planning a $677 datacenter expansion in west Des Moines Iowa"

Maybe they have a million datacenters because they're super-cheap? I can't even paint my house for $677.

Has been updated, as well as the "server" issue

thanks!

I still see "Microsoft now has more than one million datacenters" in the article. Haven't read the whole thing, either.

This is the stuff a prime-time television writer would crank out.

"Microsoft has one million internets, only second to Google."

TIL Microsoft has 10x as many data centers as they have employees. Every employee gets 10 all to themselves!

"Steve Ballmer: Microsoft Has 1 Million Servers in their Datacenters, Only Second to Google" is this correct?

again, apologies for the misleading title

Even when corrected for number of servers this tells us essentially nothing. How much compute and storage capacity does Microsoft have compared to Google and Amazon? I'm not talking raw hardware performance either, but Windows Server vs. Google's customized server OS. This kind of information would provide us better insight into their computational capabilities.

I think that's a lil' bit hard to quantify

Wow, 1 million servers across all of their datacenters. I wish I could visit such an operation just to get a sense of the scale. And how do you exactly manage that much compute/storage capacity? Amazing.

Phew,

Clive, this should've been the first comment I got, not all this :(

I guess the answer to your question is this - http://msdn.microsoft.com/en-us/library/bb895144.aspx

By the way, if some moderator reads this, the story has been pulled of because of its stupid mistake?

datacenters != servers

Even the updated article is completely wrong!

"Microsoft Has 1 Million Server Datacenters" - Uh, that's not what Ballmer meant.

But as a link bait, this article must have been super successful.

It wasn't even a link bait. I understood the difference only now. I am not an expert in the field, I agree, I didn't even thought it'd get this quickly in the top. Again, I didn't intend this to be a link bait, apologies!

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