Super-secret Google builds servers in the dark
arstechnica.com
arstechnica.com
"At Google we believe that open systems win. They lead to more innovation, value, and freedom of choice for consumers, and a vibrant, profitable, and competitive ecosystem for businesses...
We need to lay out our definition of open in clear terms that we can all understand and support...
There are two components to our definition of open: open technology and open information. Open technology includes open source, meaning we release and actively support code that helps grow the Internet, and open standards, meaning we adhere to accepted standards and, if none exist, work to create standards that improve the entire Internet (and not just benefit Google). Open information means that when we have information about users we use it to provide something that is valuable to them, we are transparent about what information we have about them, and we give them ultimate control over their information."
http://googleblog.blogspot.com/2009/12/meaning-of-open.html#...
FB opens their hardware, because the software is really quite meaningly to their core. The thing that matters to them is the social graph, which they guard jealously.
If you can make your competitor's core a commodity, you've gone a long way towards reducing their effectiveness as your competitor.
I've been considering this idea a lot and I think it explains the motivations of a surprising number of technical advancements. The masses get better free/open stuff as new competitors come along and enlist the community to help undermine the incumbents.
I bet it's a clever way of handling physical security. If anybody is accessing the server, they'll want a flashlight. Light sensor detects the light and alerts an admin. If it isn't a scheduled access, then danger will robinson!
Or similarly, perhaps they want anyone lingering/lighting their areas to be extra-obvious on security footage.
Without an explanation like these, it's hard to understand the security-gradient provided by darkness, against people who have leisurely physical access. Spies whose access isn't being closely observed can bring their own lighting, cameras, and even infrared-equipment, too.
The fences where low and only a single fence they did not cut back the woods next to the fence and they did not take the simple solution of extending the near by lake to make a proper moat.
vaguely related: http://old.post-gazette.com/pg/06188/704045-28.stm
Though one visiting US telco guy said of BT Labs "Fuck Me it's a Prison"
It's probably not going to stop heavily armed invaders, but nobody's going to sneak onto the data center floor.
Related: Santa not real.
{not to single nostromo out, it's a legitimate question but it seemed out of place as top comment}
In a way look at military. It is very ritualized. Ex. there is the changing of the guard rituals, specific culture and practices that are passed down. Any large organization will have those. It sort of help with group cohesion and assigns a level of importance to even mundane things like swapping out a hard drive.
Actually thought that after Facebook's Open Compute work they would loosen up a bit at Google, guess not.
As for the camera question, generally it can be pretty informative if you can take a picture of 'all' of someone's infrastructure to get a handle on what their costs are but I doubt that seeing a bunch of SuperMicro, HP, Dell, or BrandX faceplates in one installation out of hundreds reveals too much info.
Team: We suggest we co-locate with X and then turn the lights off - that way they can't see our super secret servers.
Google: Awesome idea!
Some time latter:
Co-Facility: Here come the gogglers with their head lamps, quick turn the lights off.
Co-Facility: They are gone, don't they look great with their LED lights, make a cool movie huh?
Co-Facility: Crikey, here come the X's, quick turn the lights on, oh man it's such a shame they don't have LED head lamps, they would look so cool if they did.
Google wants speed above all else which can be delivered best in some cases by shared centers like Equinox's. That sometimes finds itself at odds with Google's desire for secrecy for it's own proprietary advances.
"What exactly prevents no-googlers from wearing their own headlight or using a flash in camera?"
Presumably rules. Ok, so people can break the rules. The amount of information they'll get from looking at a server with a flashlight isn't very much though.
Turning the lights off is like putting piranas in your moat outside your castle. The castle is the enclosure, the moat is the contract and rules you have with the people running the site. The piranas aren't really what's protecting you but they close off some attack vectors.
"Step away from the server Mr. Ballmer!"
"Drat, foiled again! Meddling teenagers!"
Bullhorn aside, if you have 100K servers that might actually be an efficient way to monitor security for them.
It's fun to imagine what happens at Google, but you have to temper your wild speculation with some thoughts about the real world.
I understand that having more efficient infrastructure is a competitive advantage, but it seems as though just seeing their machines wouldn't provide enough insight to duplicate them. "Hey, Google's servers have fans on the back and the front" or "Hey, Google's servers are 2U, not 1U" don't seem like overservations that would provide a competitor any insight. Is designing the these type of machines not as straightforward and standardized as it seems?
Similarly, say a competitor saw their racks and noticed SSDs instead of physical disks. What information does that really provide? It's reasonable to assume that each company tries to minimize their cost and maximize performance, and that for similar situations they would make similar decisions. Is it for strategic value -- say, knowing where on the price-performance scale Google is choosing to be -- or is it to calculate their operating costs so as to better price their own products?
I'm not even sure why quantity of infrastructure is closely guarded. What advantage would a competitor gain knowing that Google has, say, 2M servers instead of 1M?
Beyond that, Google does a lot of things to run their data centers cheaply - things like keeping a higher ambient temperature (at a cost of higher hardware failure rate), the physical arrangement of servers, etc.
Moreover, since most would be fluorescent, the amount of energy wasted would be minimal compared to equipment.
I assume google owns their own data centres, and even if not, its highly likely they would negotiate on points like this with the owner for price.
[EDIT: okay. so its been pointed out I didn't read the article properly (not google owned). The second point still stands however, I am sure that Google can negotiate with price on a total-energy package]
> Moreover, since most would be fluorescent, the amount of energy wasted would be minimal compared to equipment.
I don't know how you can make that statement. There is a probably a pretty low-frequency of physical access to each server, so it seems obvious to me that a couple of rechargable LED lamps roaming around a huge space is going to be hugely more energy-saving than drenching the whole place with fluro lights (which also need regular replacement, and add to the heat load) constantly.
The article specifically referenced Google's cages in Equinix data centers.
The Article is specifically talking about space Google rents in other data enters. It would appear they are more sensitive to losing competitive advantage than a few dollars in energy savings
Depending on how much they use them (they probably last around 500 hours before being worn out) they may come out ahead or behind, but it's not a slam dunk.
> plus extra for heat extraction
To extract the heat takes 1/3 as much energy as was emitted, if that helps your calculations.
I also didn't include the energy (or cost) to create thousands of fluoro tubes, nor the human wages paid to constantly replace the ones that go... which is going to be far more than a couple of headlamps you can buy from the $1 store and some rechargable batteries.
> Depending on how much they use them (they probably last around 500 hours before being worn out) they may come out ahead or behind, but it's not a slam dunk.
I agree that 'how much you use them' is important. None of us really know how often they are accessed, but to me even for a very heavily accessed facility it does feel like a 'slam dunk'. If you feel the opposite maybe we just disagree here.
I'm not sure what wears out after 500 hours by the way: Batteries? LED lighting? Neither are going to cost an arm and a leg.
If you continue to argue that Google, a company making $30B+ of revenue/year, turned off the lights to save a meager $53k/year, you are making a fool of yourself. They would save more by merely firing this secretary who smokes cigarettes in the bathroom during lunch breaks.
Google is all about efficiency, down to giving technicians scooters to quickly move through large data centers, and choosing the optimal placement of velcros strapping hard disks to the chassis for ease of service. I bet they would rather leave the lights on rather than fumble with headlamps or flashlights...
Clearly the article is right, Google did it for privacy reasons.
Would be very nice if you would admit it is not so 'clearly' that I am wrong now.