Inside a Google Data Center

Let’s talk about something you already know: Google! Google is an American multinational technology company specializing in Internet-related services and products. These include online advertising technologies, search, cloud computing, and software. Google was founded by Larry Page and Sergey Brin while they were Ph.D. students at Stanford University. They incorporated Google as a privately held company on September 4, 1998". In 2004, Google moved to its new headquarters in Mountain View, California, nicknamed the Googleplex. Its mission statement from the outset was "to organize the world's information and make it universally accessible and useful. To organize the world’s information, you need to be well prepared. Because before organizing the information of the planet, you need to store it… But where? In a Data Center of course! Let’s buckle up and go for an interesting trip inside a Google data center then!

According to Google employees, a Google data center is the Brain of the Internet, its Engine, consisting of row, upon row, upon row of machines all working together to provide the services that make Google function. They are right. The Google Data Center that we will discover is located in South Carolina and is one node in a larger worldwide network of Google Data Centers. Regarding the physical security of this data center, the access is monitored by various layers of security which levels grow higher, the closer we get into the data center. For instance, to enter the data center campus, we need to wipe a badge that has to be on a pre-authorized access list. The core of the data center, the networking rooms are the highest level of security. They even have under floor intrusion detection via laser beams in their colocation rooms. Secondly for the power supply, the high-voltage power is provided by an overhead power distribution that brought the power from the generators in the power plant. Thirdly, for the cooling process, unlike in most of the data centers where air conditioning units placed along the perimeter walls force under the floor cold air that raises up to cool the servers in the cold aisle, in this data center, the server racks are put right against the air conditioning units, where cold water flows into copper coils to help cool the servers. The hot air generated by those servers passes through the coils, where the heat from the air is transferred to the water. That warm water is brought to the cooling plant to be cooled down and returned back to the colocation rooms: the cycle starts over again.

Google is also very concerned about the staff working hard in this data center for who was designed a fun environment to play hard too. And this will be the terminus of our journey!