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Comment by nostromo | Hacker News Reader

Lights also generate a fair amount of heat and use unnecessary energy -- both things you don't want in a data center. Was that part of the calculus?

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They don't generate anywhere near the heat nor use anywhere near the amount of energy the servers do. I imagine this wasn't a big part of the equation. Google is incredibly secretive about datacenters and servers. Speaking as a former engineer who worked on web search, all information about datacenter hardware was very, very confidential, way more than plenty of other confidential info. I hadn't heard about the lights out policy before, but it doesn't surprise me.

well given the pics of the DC that google released I do not think they take physical security that seriously.

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.

Your competition is only going to go so far. "I got turned around in the datacenter, oopsie" is something that happens. It's not likely that Amazon is going to send someone over a fence, regardless of how low it is. That's crossing the line.

Amazon may not be sending someone in. But there could be some "paparazzi" out there who would like to get a photo of this for his/her fame. Then, it will be visible to amazon, facebook et al.

But its ignoring standard practice at even low security places for example the fences at BT Labs (Uk's Bell Labs) where about 50% higher and curved inwards (to keep intruders inside.

Though one visiting US telco guy said of BT Labs "Fuck Me it's a Prison"

Google Data Center Security video from 2011: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1SCZzgfdTBo

It's probably not going to stop heavily armed invaders, but nobody's going to sneak onto the data center floor.

It seems like a popular view here that Google is just trying to save twenty bucks on it's electric bill and I hate to (be the fourth guy in this thread to) break it to them but this has zero to do with electric bills.

Related: Santa not real.

{not to single nostromo out, it's a legitimate question but it seemed out of place as top comment}

That was my first thought as well, but thinking further, LED lights can be used and their heat and energy generated should be so low that it shouldn't be part of the equation.

Comparing lumen per watt, the T5 lights are still more energy efficient than most LED lights.

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