Microsoft IT manages a significant infrastructure and reducing the cost of this infrastructure has been a major focus for several years. For example, the group reduced the number of physical locations housing Exchange servers from more than 70 to seven while reducing the total number of Exchange servers from more than 200 to fewer than 100. Deployment of new Microsoft technology is also a priority and technologies such as Windows SharePoint Services (WSS) and Live Communications Server (LCS) have seen rapid uptake among Microsoft’s employees.

The group has also consolidated infrastructure servers (which includes domain controllers and the Exchange, print, DNS, and remote access servers), reducing their count by 30% over the past several years. Although not shown on the chart, included in the count of infrastructure servers are those supporting other user-related services (such as file and data storage, intranet Web servers, and Internet firewall and proxy services) and those used by the IT group for services such as backup and recovery, and monitoring.

Back to associated article: How Microsoft Organizes IT