michael manos

Manos explains move to Digital Realty Trust

Michael Manos, the former data center pro at Microsoft, lays out his reasons for moving to Digital Realty Trust in a blog post this morning.

There are two main ones: 1) Digital is in a position to effect change in the data center industry in a major way; and 2) They are led by forward-looking people who are passionate about the industry. Sounds like good reasons to me. Manos expands on the “passionate” point:

Let me reiterate that passionate point a moment, this is not some real estate company looking to make a quick buck on mission critical space.  I have seen enough of those in my career.  This is a firm focused on educating the market, driving innovation in application of technology, and near zealot commitment on driving efficiencies for their customers.  Whether its their frequent webinars, their industry speaking engagements, or personal conversations they are dedicated to this space, and dedicated on informing their customers.  Even when we have disagreed on topics or issues in the past, its always a great respectful conversation.  In a nutshell, they GET IT.

Digital certainly is out at industry events, speaking, running booths, and being a strong presence. And they do hold regular webinars — I would say once every couple months or more frequently — a few of which I’ve listened into and found to be helpful. The company is considered the largest data center real estate company in the world, with presence all over the U.S. and Europe (you can see all their locations here).

Manos also lauded Digital for being big on quick data center deployment, which is something he worked hard on with Christian Belady while at Microsoft. The modular data center is a hot topic now, particularly among large Web companies and data center colocation businesses who are looking at the data center as a set of Lego building blocks with which to build data centers as quickly as possible.

Manos revealed that one of his goals while at Digital Realty Trust will be to “develop the ability to deliver data center capacity start to finish in 16 weeks.” That’s less than four months. The normal data center planning and construction process usually takes 4-6 times longer. So that is worth keeping a close eye on.

Michael Manos leaving Microsoft to join Digital Realty Trust

Michael Manos, Microsoft’s senior director of data center services, will leave the company to join Digital Realty Trust’s data center operations.

Manos has been a big part of Microsoft opening its data centers to public view and advocating for measuring energy consumption. He was also one of the leaders of Microsoft’s containerized data center strategy, and introduced a conceptual open-air data center design. But not everything is rosy in the Microsoft data center world. The company announced earlier this year that it was slowing construction of its Chicago and Iowa facilities, and cutting data center capital expenditures by $300 million.

At Digital Realty Trust, Manos will serve as the senior vice president of technical services, overseeing data center construction and design worldwide. Digital is the largest landlord of data center properties in the world.

In a press release, Digital CEO said that Manos “was a tremendous innovator at Microsoft, and his role here at Digital Realty Trust will have an even bigger impact by enabling our customers to directly take advantage of his broad expertise in data center architecture, construction and operations.”

Manos is expected to join Digital Realty Trust in early May. In the release, he is quoted as saying that Digital “has assembled an incredibly talented team of experts in datacenter construction, energy efficiency and operations who have been on the front line of modernizing the way people around the world design and run datacenters. Joining Digital Realty Trust gives me a unique opportunity to play a significant role in creating this new vision of the datacenter and bringing those advancements to the industry as a whole.”

Chris Crosby is also a senior VP of technical services at Digital, and has been the public face of the company at industry shows, giving many technical presentations. Once Manos joins Digital, the two will work side-by-side.

It is unclear how or if Microsoft will fill the vacancy left when Manos leaves.