Google's Secretive Data Center

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.'

Comments

Re:This message will probably be erased

[Billosaur]

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.

Is there a link...

[GmAz]

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

Re:Barren wasteland no more?

[mspohr]

According to TFA, the data center does not show up on Google Earth.

Re: may i be the first to say...

[Andrew Kismet]

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:The positive side

[QuantumRiff]

Since your reply seems to be the only intellegent one out there, I'll post as a reply to yours, lest i get burried under the references to the Terminator series. Google is building here for 3 reasons:

1)Power. The area is on the Columbia river, which has some very impressive Dams. Very cheap power up there. There is a reason that there used to be 2 Aluminum plants there, the Power is freaking cheap compared to California and elsewhere. Along with the Power comes the proximitiy to water (my stupid guess) the columbia stays pretty cool year round, think water cooling for some of the equipment. Much cheaper than AC, and cold year round.

2)Fiber. Bonneville Power Administration (BPA, Runs all the dams) has run Fiber all over the states of OR and WA to support the Power grid it has put in place. And as long as they were running one fiber, might as well pull 100. Because of the BPA, there is Dark fiber all over Oregon and Washington, especially to rural communities. They have 2 companies managing all that dark fiber for them. In washington, its NoaNet and in Oregon its LS Networks. Then take a look at this map and notice how many oversea fibers come ashore in oregon. Most of Aisa, Hawaii, Austrailia, and Alaska. That makes Oregon a fairly "close" location to many other nations.

3)Brains. The Dalles is 80 miles east of Portland. Portland is crazy for Open source, thats where OSDL are, (including Linus!), several universities, intel has 2 fabs there that hire 15,000 engineers, etc. Lots of smart, educated engineers an hour away..