The Brain Of The Beast: Google Reveals The Computers Behind The Cloud
October 17, 2012
Grazed from NPR.org. Author: Jordan G. Teicher.
Behind the ephemeral "cloud" of cloud computing, the network we use for everything from checking our email to streamlining our health care system, there lies a very tangible and very big computer infrastructure. But besides a glimpse at some of the hardware in 2009, there has been little information about Google’s data centers, the warehoused collections of servers that have given the company the foundation for its vast Internet operations.
Today, the company is throwing open the gates to the world — digitally, of course. It has released a site featuring photos of facilities from Belgium to Finland to Iowa and launched a guided Street View tour of one in Lenoir, N.C…
A rare look behind the server aisle in Mayes County, Okla. Hundreds of fans funnel hot air from the server racks into a cooling unit to be recirculated. This is the first time Google has opened the doors of its data centers to outsiders.
It’s the same facility the company revealed in an exclusive tour to Wired senior writer Steven Levy, whose story on Google’s infrastructure appears in the magazine’s November issue. In an interview with Morning Edition’s Steve Inskeep, Levy described going where no Google outsider has gone before:
"What strikes you immediately is the scale of things. The room is so huge you can almost see the curvature of Earth on the end. And wall to wall are racks and racks and racks of servers with blinking blue lights and each one is many, many times more powerful and with more capacity than my laptop. And you’re in the throbbing heart of the Internet. You really feel it."…
Read more from the source @ http://www.npr.org/blogs/alltechconsidered/2012/10/17/163031136/the-brain-of-the-beast-google-reveals-the-computers-behind-the-cloud