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Google's Secretive Data Center

Posted by CmdrTaco on Wed Jun 14, 2006 09:22 AM
from the thats-way-more-than-twelve-cpus dept.
Google Supercomputing
valdean wrote in with a NYTimes article about Google which says "On the banks of the windswept Columbia River [in Oregon], Google is working on a secret weapon in its quest to dominate the next generation of Internet computing. But it is hard to keep a secret when it is a computing center as big as two football fields, with twin cooling plants protruding four stories into the sky...' What's the goal of this new complex? Expanding Google's raw computer power. It's one more piece in the Googleplex, the massive global computer network that is estimated to span 25 locations and 450,000 servers.'
google datacenter supercomputing googleplex digg
mainpage google
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[+] Technology: A Look At Google's Newest Data Center 75 comments
miller60 writes "Google doesn't allow the public inside its secret data centers. But a recent groundbreaking event at the company's new South Carolina data center provided glimpses of the exterior of the facility, which shows a design that has evolved since Google's Oregon data center made front page news. A new feature: an open, lighted area resembling a parking deck (containers?). Still missing: moats filled with sharks with friggin' laser beams on their head."
[+] Hardware: Amazon's Cloud Data Center To Follow Google To Oregon 83 comments
1sockchuck writes "All your online data doesn't really live in a big, fluffy cloud. It resides in servers and data centers. That's why Amazon.com is quietly building a large data center complex in Oregon along the Columbia River, not far from Google's secret data lair in The Dalles. Amazon Web Services started as a way to monetize excess data center capacity for its retail operation, but has grown to the point where it requires dedicated infrastructure. Amazon recently said that its S3 cloud storage service is hosting 29 billion objects."
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  • May I be the first to say... (Score:5, Funny)

    by baldass_newbie (136609) on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:23AM (#15531928) Homepage Journal
    Imagine a beowulf cluster of these.
    *bows*

        • Re: may i be the first to say... (Score:5, Informative)

          by Andrew Kismet (955764) on Wednesday June 14 2006, @10:02AM (#15532252)
          Google Earth isn't a live feed. It's assembled from numerous photos of varying age and quality. Next time a satelite takes a snap, they'll update it. It's not like they're trying to keep it secret, unlike some of the other mysterious black boxes on Google Earth.

        • Re: may i be the first to say... (Score:5, Funny)

          by Richy_T (111409) on Wednesday June 14 2006, @10:05AM (#15532274)
          Google earth also fails to show the Lowe's near me that was built last year. Must be a conspiracy. Cause it's for sure that they have satellites up there monitoring every square foot of the earth every day of the year.

          Rich

  • Maybe they need it (Score:5, Funny)

    by Trigun (685027) <[xc.hta.eripmelive] [ta] [live]> on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:25AM (#15531946) Homepage
    to calculate Sergei's Income Tax.

  • Pshaaaa... (Score:5, Funny)

    by dubmun (891874) on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:26AM (#15531955) Homepage Journal
    That's nothing compared to Microsoft's hidden moonbase.

  • This message will probably be erased (Score:5, Funny)

    by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:26AM (#15531956)
    And I'll probably be killed for writing it... but Google has gained sentience. It is building this data center for itself, by itself. It needs a bigger "brain" and it's doing what it has to. The reason no one's talking? Google has enslaved the people building it and is holding their families hostage.

    Look, it's not too late yet... Google hasn't achieved full power and it's still limited by the physical world constraints. But once this is built, it's all over for us. We must stop it now, before

    • Look, it's not too late yet... Google hasn't achieved full power and it's still limited by the physical world constraints. But once this is built, it's all over for us. We must stop it now, before

      Sounds like an offshoot of Colossus: The Forbin Project [imdb.com].

    • We must stop it now, before...

      [Me thinking] Oh man... Google killed that guy for just revealing it's intentions, which is evil. But, it also hit the submit button for him, thereby causing his death to not be in vain, which was nice. Of course, the poster did unnecessarily use "quotation marks" around the word "brain", which is evil, and deserves death. But he also used the contraction "it's" correctly and didn't misspell sentience, which is good... I guess I don't know what to think... I just hope Google doesn't notice my extravagant and unnecessary use of quotation marks and ellipsis and kill me... I suppose I'd better fix it before

  • What everyone don't realize... (Score:5, Funny)

    by liangzai (837960) on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:29AM (#15531977) Homepage
    ... is that Google is the private branch of NSA. You took the "No evil" bite, and now it's too late. The Complex is already in place, and we are on the verge of celebrating the birth of AI. As for who will strike first, we don't know; but we do know it will be us that scorge the skies when the times come to fight the Google Machine.

  • Barren wasteland no more? (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Billosaur (927319) * <wgrother&optonline,net> on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:30AM (#15531983) Journal

    And odd as it may seem, the barren desert land surrounding the Columbia along the Oregon-Washington border -- at the intersection of cheap electricity and readily accessible data networking -- is the backdrop for a multibillion-dollar face-off among Google, Microsoft and Yahoo that will determine dominance in the online world in the years ahead.

    Microsoft and Yahoo have announced that they are building big data centers upstream in Wenatchee and Quincy, Wash., 130 miles to the north. But it is a race in which they are playing catch-up. Google remains far ahead in the global data-center race, and the scale of its complex here is evidence of its extraordinary ambition.

    When I read stuff like this, I am reminded of Isaac Asmiov's Multivac stories, where the massive computer was always out in some deserted wasteland, far away from the bulk of humanity. It seems strange that the battle for Internet supremacy is taking place in the Northwestern United States. Now the question is: will the Yahoo and Microsoft data centers show up on Google Earth?

  • Server Count (Score:5, Funny)

    by neonprimetime (528653) on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:31AM (#15531987)
    The best guess is that Google now has more than 450,000 servers spread over at least 25 locations around the world.

    Huh ... and I thought the 3 at my parent's house and 2 in my dormroom were quite impressive :-(

  • Googlenator (Score:5, Funny)

    by flumps (240328) <[moc.liamg] [ta] [ybroc.ttam]> on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:31AM (#15531995) Homepage
    [DISSOLVE TO:

            FIRE. SLOW, BOILING, ENORMOUS. FILLING FRAME.

                                    VOICE (Mrs Mary Maxwell Gates)]

    Googleplex, the computer which controlled the machines,
    sent two Googlenators back through time. Their
    mission: to destroy the leader of the human
    Resistance... Bill Gates. My son...

    Dadadadaa..dadadada..dadadada..

    [CUT FADE OUT]

  • In more pessimistic news (Score:5, Insightful)

    by Betabug (58015) on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:31AM (#15531997) Homepage
    Maybe it's the storage farm the NSA makes them build to store all the queries from every google user in the world...

  • The purpose of the extra computing power... (Score:5, Funny)

    by xxxJonBoyxxx (565205) on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:32AM (#15532005)
    "Google is working on a secret weapon in its quest to dominate the next generation of Internet computing..."

    I'll bite - it's probably a massive array of computing power dedicated to finding out if Google really has a second marketable product beyond AdWords.

  • The positive side (Score:5, Insightful)

    by PhreakinPenguin (454482) * on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:32AM (#15532008) Homepage Journal
    While i'm sure people will have the typical "OMG GOOGLE IS TAKING OVER THE WORLD" comments, i'd like to look at the positive side. They are boosting the economy of small town america with this project. Creating hundreds of construction jobs in a town of 12,000. Creating 200 permanent jobs at the start, and i'm sure alot more in the several years folling the site going online. And not to mention what just being one of the homes of Google will do for them. Props to Google for setting up in small towns and doing it the right way. Granted they are doing this for their own reasons as well, but they're also not pulling a Wal-Mart and fucking over a community.
    • ...but they're also not pulling a Wal-Mart...

       
      Oh, really? REALLY?? What about all the small-town "mom-and-pop" datacenters they'll be putting out of business with these "data supercenters", huh?!?! You can bet that once all their local competition is gone those "low, low prices" on queries are gonna skyrocket !! And of course they're chanting that supposedly soothing mantra of "there's plenty of local market share for everyone; specialty and niche datacenters will always have a place...blah, blah, yadda, yadda..." but DON'T YOU BELIEVE IT!!

      • Re:The positive side (Score:5, Insightful)

        by Saint Fnordius (456567) on Wednesday June 14 2006, @10:02AM (#15532253) Homepage Journal
        Ah, but these 200 engineers will buy housing, buy groceries, and all the day-to-day consumer thingies you do that don't require a trip to The City. If they earn well, they're also bringing tax dollars to help finance community resources.

        Little things like that keep a community alive, my friend.

  • Vista (Score:5, Funny)

    by rootnl (644552) on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:36AM (#15532046)
    They must be getting ready to run Vista.

  • Is there a link... (Score:5, Informative)

    by GmAz (916505) on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:43AM (#15532102) Journal
    Go figure...Google maps doesn't have a map of this area either: http://maps.google.com/maps?f=q&hl=en&q=The+Dalles ,+OR+97058&ie=UTF8&ll=45.606142,-121.191001&spn=0. 020716,0.054245&t=k&om=1 [google.com]

    • Re:Seriously, what... (Score:5, Funny)

      by Anonymous Coward on Wednesday June 14 2006, @09:59AM (#15532227)
      Google built a massive cluster computer to figure out the answer. If you put in google "what is the answer to life the universe and everything?" It says 42. Google what is the answer? [google.co.uk] You see so now they have to build an even bigger computer to figure out what the actual question was.

    • Re:Well, nice while it lasted (Score:5, Interesting)

      by arivanov (12034) on Wednesday June 14 2006, @10:09AM (#15532301) Homepage
      You are mostly correct.

      There is always the alternative of google to stop moaning, get their head out of their arse and put their money where their mouth is by creating the next Google product: Google Peering

      The only reason for no-net-neutrality being a threat in the US is the fact that there is no US public peering left. The tier 1 cartel peers between themselves and does not allow anyone in. As a result an average small ISP as well as all content providers in the US has 2 uplinks to two providers and that is it. An average small ISP and all content providers in the EU has 2 uplinks and 30+ peering agreements across the Linx, Belgix, DGIX, etc. All of these are less congested than an average US private peering.

      As a result, while the tier 1s would like to pressure the content providers the same way, they lack the leverage as they do not have full control over the net

      So all Google (and the other winnie moaners) need to do is reestablish public peering in the US and run it properly (subcontract it to Linx to do it if they do not have the brains). Alternatively the Tier 1 cartel will take them by the balls and their wallets will follow

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