Slashdot Mirror
Google's Secret Plans For All That Dark Fiber?
beat.net writes "Robert X. Cringely details the plan for all the dark fiber Google has been buying up: "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. While Google could put these containers anywhere, it makes the most sense to place them at Internet peering points, of which there are about 300 worldwide.""
a Beowulf cluster of these puppies...
...Oh, we don't really need to Google seem to be building one.
I used to have a better sig but it broke.
Sounds like Google may be ready to go starbucks.
If most Google employees don't know about the storage container, how does THIS guy know about it???
...I know what I want for Christmas this year.
>Google hired a pair of very bright industrial designers
:o)
I haven't yet met one that didn't think they were very bright. Industrial Designers invent stuff that takes 'ordinary' engineers years to throw away and build something else that will fly. No danger of anything happening here folks
Open Source Drum Kit, LPLC deve board - mjhdesigns.com
>>We're talking about 5000 Opteron processors and 3.5 petabytes of disk storage
They're just getting ready to run Windows Vista when it comes out.
Once I was a four stone apology. Now I am two separate gorillas.
Security?! I'd be more afraid for the geek's security, than the cube's.
Knowing Google, I would think that these shipping container computer things would be covered with sensing devices. It's probably scanning the face, gait, apparent weight, and shoe size of anyone that gets near it, and googling for their name, their address, their family and children, employer, and all other relations. As it prepares to activate the lightning sprocket, it's probably composing emails, editing video footage, and notifying the newspapers of an impending obituary.
I'd sooner touch the Ark of the Covenant of the Lord your God, than touch one of these here Google Skynet Singularity Machines.
Don't forget Crzmblski's Limit.
The higher the technology, the sharper that two-edged sword.
1W = the amount of power required to heat 1g of water 1 degree celsius in 1 second (1 J/sec).
1 cup of coffee: 0.2 litres (200g) heated from 10 to 100 degrees celsius (90 degrees) = 18 KJ.
250 KW: 14 cups of coffee per second.
The answer to "where do we put these puppies"?
Next to Starbucks.
I hadn't heard of Crzmblski's Limit, so naturally I went to Google to find out what it was
Now all we have to do is wait for some Google employee to play a Sony CD on this and these will become spam relays.
Perfect.
That's it! The opterons produce heat, which boils water which runs the turbines to generate electricity to power the opterons! My god man! It's the Google perpetual motion machine!
With dark energy... duh!
Here's the link http://www.everything2.com/index.pl?node_id=176552 3&lastnode_id=1765513