Google, Microsoft Escalate Data Center Battle

miller60 writes "The race by Microsoft and Google to build next-generation data centers is intensifying. On Thursday Microsoft announced a $550 million San Antonio project, only to have Google confirm plans for a $600 million site in North Carolina. It appears Google may just be getting started, as it is apparently planning two more enormous data centers in South Carolina, which may cost another $950 million. These 'Death Star' data centers are emerging as a key assets in the competitive struggle between Microsoft and Google, which have both scaled up their spending (as previously discussed on Slashdot). Some pundits, like PBS' Robert X. Cringley, say the scope and cost of these projects reflect the immense scale of Google's ambitions."

Comments

Non-local computing

[bigberk]

The aim for both of these giants is to shift people towards non-local computing, that is software and applications that run remotely rather than on someone's own computer.

Early signs of this beyond the obvious google applications that require web access, are aggressive attempts by Microsoft to "activate" everything online. You are going to increasingly need network connections to run standard applications.

I don't like that myself, since it hurts reliability and autonomy in computing. From a marketing perspective, there are huge benefits to centralized computing of course. Take gmail for instance, which lets google mine your private communications to gain insight into products and services which might interest you.

Re:Non-local computing

[Speed Pour]

The aim for both of these giants is to shift people towards non-local computing, I thought the aim was to prove which one had the larger penis?

I don't like that myself, since it hurts reliability and autonomy in computing. From a marketing perspective, there are huge benefits to centralized computing of course. Take gmail for instance, which lets google mine your private communications to gain insight into products and services which might interest you. On a serious note. While I don't care all that much if google uses an automated method to push advertising on me, I am more bothered by the fact that it's a single target that retains tons of information. A hacker can break into one person's home computer and get their info, or they can break into a google server and have 2 million people. Same reason that hackers target windows/ie over linux/firefox, they can accomplish/demolish a larger audience.

Re:Non-local computing

[Richard W.M. Jones]

A hacker can break into one person's home computer and get their info, or they can break into a google server and have 2 million people.

I'd be more worried about a rogue government or future government deciding
they want to mine that data to find out who all the "terrorists" are.

Oh, wait ...

Rich.

Re:Non-local computing

[g-doo]

From a marketing perspective, there are huge benefits to centralized computing of course. Take gmail for instance, which lets google mine your private communications to gain insight into products and services which might interest you. Perhaps, but it also gives us greater mobility in the sense that we can move from computer to computer anywhere in the world, and continue seamlessly where we left off.

Re:Non-local computing

[1u3hr]

Perhaps, but it also gives us greater mobility in the sense that we can move from computer to computer anywhere in the world, and continue seamlessly where we left off.

Who actually needs to work like that? Most people go to work, sit at the same desk and use the same keyboard on the same PC every day. You have your chair at the right height, a mouse that fits your hand, a cushion that fits your back, your calendar on the wall, your paper files in a cabinet. For the small percentage of people who do wander around and alight at a random desk, that's fine. But for most it's just adding an extra lag and making their productivity dependent on perfect connectivity.

Good in the short term

[caitsith01]

For the time being, it's surely a good thing if two extremely wealthy companies pour resources into creating ultra-high capacity facilities such as these, particularly as Google's business model is based around providing services which are nominally 'free' (in terms of dollars) and as such these resources are in a sense an investment in our common infrastructure. If we're really lucky Google and Microsoft will hugely over-invest, and one day find themselves with a large overcapacity which third parties might be able to use for their own work.

However, longer term things may not be so appealing. Both companies have a nasty habit of collecting and storing as much personal data as possible (Google in particular), and both are pushing towards 'lock out' where you are prevented from using your own computer without their participation via connection to their networks. And of course the software industry has a history of producing only one winner in the end, meaning the benefits of this kind of head-to-head competition are unlikely to last...

Time to invest

[Technician]

On Thursday Microsoft announced a $550 million San Antonio project, only to have Google confirm plans for a $600 million site in North Carolina.

It looks like it's time to invest in IBM, Red Hat, Maxtor, and Intel. They may sell a lot of hardware and software.

Re:Time to invest

[arivanov]

Wrong. These are all relatively high valued stocks so your ROI will be minimal.

If you invest based on 3rd party development you need to invest into something that is currently valued low and will grow by a large factor based on the development, taking any relevant risk in the process.

It is time to invest into one of the nearly bankrupt transatlantic line companies. Google quite obviously has decided to limit their expansion in EU and build on the other side of the fat cable instead. Not a bad idea after all - less regulation (especially related to all the new services they are trying to push), easier to buy local politicians at the cost of the latency of the transatlantic lines. They are also most likely close to hitting the wall on what they can build in Ireland due to the rise in the prices (caused by them amidst everyone else) and building in any other EU country with good long distance links is hugely expensive.

This means that the price of transatlantic capacity and revenues from it will now go up again.

Essentially the current situation where the only "profitable" cables are the ones to India and the Gulf will revert to the old one where the "across-the-pond" ones will become the most profitable.

Data security nightmare

[Travoltus]

If it isn't the hackers trying to break into your system, it's Google's marketing partners getting exclusive access to your communications.

Forget that, I'd rather have my own mail server at home, not to mention my own apps at home. I don't even trust ISP's.

This "offsite word processing" crap is for chumps - anyone with sensitive data would be utter idiots to go there.

As long as it doesn't violate GPL

[melted]

As long as it doesn't violate GPL (and it does not), I'm fine with Google not releasing their stuff to the masses. Nearly every big Linux shop has their own tweaked version of Linux kernel, so it's not like they're evil or something.

Re:As long as it doesn't violate GPL

[Heembo]

It just seems to defeat the open source nature of Linux when you branch in a private way that avoids community code review and source code sharing.

Re:As long as it doesn't violate GPL

[John Nowak]

Would you prefer Google not exist at all or be forced to strike some deal with Microsoft?

Re:As long as it doesn't violate GPL

[cheater512]

Google is contributing back in many other ways.

Its just not possible for them to release their internal source.

Re:As long as it doesn't violate GPL

[dangitman]

It just seems to defeat the open source nature of Linux when you branch in a private way that avoids community code review and source code sharing.

If it's against the spirit, then why was private code-branching specifically allowed by the GPL? Isn't freedom to run your code as you see fit a big part of freedom?

Re:As long as it doesn't violate GPL

[bmo]

"It just seems to defeat the open source nature of Linux when you branch in a private way that avoids community code review and source code sharing."

It's obvious that you've not grokked GPL itself.

The GPL covers distribution. No distribution = do whatever you want with the code.

You forget that Google loses the power of peer review for their code, but that's the tradeoff. Having a lot of really smart people in their employ probably makes up for it. So they've got their own branch. They have to do their own heavy lifting.

If you remove the freedom to work on Linux in-house, then you've removed one of the freedoms _allowed_ by the GPL.

--
BMO

Re:As long as it doesn't violate GPL

[hey!]

Tailoring software to your own use is not branching. It's just using. A "private branch" is a contradiction in terms. Perhaps it could be called a "private bud", because such a modified version could become a branch. But if it can not attract users and developers, it's not a branch.

The question of the "spirit" of FOSS is profound though. Underneath the license, there are two related principles, a negative one (do not interfere with the rights of an object code recipient) and a positive one (share knowledge). The question that arises is this: should these principles apply to users of services built around the object code? There doesn't seem to be a fundamental reason why such rights are granted to people who receive the object as object code, but not people who are equally if not more affected.

I think the answer may hinge on this: of the two principles, non-interference and sharing, the sharing principle is less strong.

Users of a service created by a vendor like Google are not supposed to have the power to change that service. Otherwise it would be impossible to offer a service before its users redefined it into the oblivion of inconsistency. Google gets to define the service and control it. Not allowing users to change the service (via the source code it runs on) is not interference, because the service would not exist if any user could change the source code on a whim (Wikipedia perhaps being a related counterexample).

But if the sharing principle were equally strong Google would be obligated to share the source code of any changes it made with its users, even if they were not allowed to alter the services they depend on.

This argument leads to the conclusion that sharing must be less of a fundamental value to FOSS than it is "instrumental" to the value of non-inteference. If you control source code to object code somebody else depends on, you can interfere in their freedoms (e.g. proprietary database licenses that forbid publishing benchmarks).

This may make some sense. In engineering, the most important piece of knoweldge is usually that something can be done. In this case, the changes Google has made are probably (1) stripping unneeded features out and (2) tweaks that are highly Google specific. The first is something that any reasonably competent engineer can do, the second is probably not critical to any would be competitors amongst Google's users.

Control over source code is reaching, via the laws of copyrights and contracts, into the affairs of object code recipients. Non-sharing of know-how is something every business does to some degree; it is more difficult to draw the line between vicious and innocuous secretiveness than it is between vicious and innocuous interference.

Re:Bang for the Buck? Microsoft is in big trouble.

[Anonymous Coward]

MS have your ignorance to their advantage.

Moving East

[Anonymous Coward]

As someone from the East coast (not the LEFT coast), I am glad to see more investments this direction. I have thought for a long time that way too much goes to CA, WA, and TX, and more should come East, and especially to the depressed (since 1865) South. As a grad of a Southern school who had to move to the DC area for a good job, more jobs in the SE can only help the situation.

Ecological dream

[Per Abrahamsen]

A data center can run close to 100% utility, and can (and will) be optimized for processing power per watt.

A PC will run way below peak capacity most of the time, and will typically be optimized for all kinds of things, like peak processing power per dollar initial investment. Running cost will rarely be a factor.

In the best case, the data centers will mean orders of magnitude decrease in power consumption for computing, if people start investing in PC's just powerful enough to run a web browser, and delegate everything heavy to the data centers.

In the worst case, if people keep PC's capable of the same peak performance, the increase in power consumption will be orders of magnitude smaller than the current consumption.

Thus, in the worst case we are not significantly worse of than without the data centers. In the best case, we are orders of magnitude better off.

Re:Maybe

[hxnwix]

Suppose that google is going to make the desktop OS and office suite obsolete. This very moment is then Microsoft's last chance - their stock market value and warchest will soon vaporize, along with their opportunity to compete with google.

And whatever they do, they will *never* be as good at what Google does. Remember, many folks say that Microsoft still isn't as good as IBM was.

Re:Incentives to Build

[dawnzer]

Just because the City/County may be giving them tax breaks, doesn't mean they won't be paying taxes - and lots of it. For the San Antonio site, the school district stands to collect millions of dollars every year - without the burden of a significant increase in students (the article says there will be only 75 employees).

It also isn't just structural construction. The land development (roads, site work, drainage, etc.), will be done locally and cost a pretty penny. This is my field and I live in SA, so I am excited.

They will also be the #1 customer of the local electrical perveyor - CPS Energy. Don't worry, they local economy will more than get that money back.