Google’s Solution To Data Center Problems: Wal-Mart Data Centers
Robert Cringely explains how Google has built a prototype data center that fits massive amounts of power into a 20-40 foot box.
The probable answer lies in one of Google’s underground parking garages in Mountain View. There, in a secret area off-limits even to regular GoogleFolk, is a shipping container. But it isn’t just any shipping container. This shipping container is a prototype data center. Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers to figure out how to cram the greatest number of CPUs, the most storage, memory and power support into a 20- or 40-foot box. We’re talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage that can be dropped-off overnight by a tractor-trailer rig. The idea is to plant one of these puppies anywhere Google owns access to fiber, basically turning the entire Internet into a giant processing and storage grid.
Google can place one of these at every major internet crossroad on Earth, reducing latency, access times, and server loads worldwide. It means Google won’t have bad launches like those that have plagued it this year, and it means Google will the most reliable service on the planet.
(via Greg Linden)
Can you imagine the kind of heat that would give off?
Comment by Brock | November 20, 2005
Well, that article sounded like a steaming pile of overhype, the jaws of life are gonna be needed to remove that guy’s head from Google’s ass. Shame that that style of hand-waving internet speculation didn’t die out when the tech bubble burst.
Comment by Stu | November 20, 2005
[…] Zawodny talks about storage solutions moving online and InsideGoogle speculates on conspiracies that Google is investing in boxes that allow petabytes (3.5) to be stored in a 20-40 foot box…with about 5000 Opteron processors inside… […]
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[…] it easier for the company to relocate data centers based on economic and other logistical factors. For two years, we’ve been hearing about Google designing these things, but no one’s actually seen Google putting any into […]
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