Tag Archives: google

How Google Cools Its Armada of Servers

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Here’s how the airflow works: The temperature in the data center is maintained at 80 degrees, somewhat warmer than in most data centers. That 80-degree air enters the server, inlet and passes across the components, becoming warmer as it removes the heat. Fans in the rear of the chassis guide the air into an enclosed hot aisle, which reaches 120 degrees as hot air enters from rows of racks on either side. As the hot air rises to the top of the chamber, it passes through the cooling coil and is cooled to room temperature, and then exhausted through the top of the enclosure. The flexible piping connects to the cooling coil at the top of the hot aisle and descends through an opening in the floor and runs under the raised floor.

via How Google Cools Its Armada of Servers » Data Center Knowledge.

Google’s custom servers also have a bare bones look and feel, with components exposed for easy access as they slide in and out of racks. This provides easy access for admins who need to replace components, but also avoids the cost of cosmetic trappings common to OEM servers.

A database that knows what time it is

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Google has made public the details of its Spanner database technology, which allows a database to store data across multiple data centers, millions of machines and trillions of rows. But it’s not just larger than the average database, Spanner also allows applications that use the database to dictate where specific data is stored so as to reduce latency when retrieving it.

via Google’s Spanner: A database that knows what time it is — Data | GigaOM.

Spanner is cool as a database tool for the current era of real-time data, but it also indicates how Google is thinking about building a compute infrastructure that is designed to run amid a dynamic environment where the hardware, the software and the data itself being processed is constantly changing.

The Benefits & Importance of Compatibility

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Goggle’s response.

While Android remains free for anyone to use as they would like, only Android compatible devices benefit from the full Android ecosystem. By joining the Open Handset Alliance, each member contributes to and builds one Android platform — not a bunch of incompatible versions. We’re grateful to the over 85 Open Handset Alliance members who have helped us build the Android ecosystem and continue to drive innovation at an incredible pace. Thanks to their support the Android ecosystem now has over 500 million Android-compatible devices and counting!

via The Benefits & Importance of Compatibility | Official Android Blog.

From: Google has dropped an Android-shaped bomb on China’s mobile market

Baidu, for one, is in negotiation with a number of companies to develop smartphones using Baidu Cloud, a system that sits on top of Android and strips out Google’s services, replacing them with its own, Chinese versions. Given Google’s statement and the fact that it directly rivals Baidu, the Chinese search giant would be justified to feel Google may have scared existing Open Handset Alliance partners away from working with Baidu Cloud.

It’s worth noting though that Baidu has steered clear of calling Baidu Cloud an OS, likely in order to position its offering as one that supplements Android rather than supplanting it.

NSA Mimics Google, Pisses Off Senate

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But the NSA also saw the database as something that could improve security across the federal government — and beyond. Last September, the agency open sourced its Google mimic, releasing the code as the Accumulo project. It’s a common open source story — except that the Senate Armed Services Committee wants to put the brakes on the project.

via NSA Mimics Google, Pisses Off Senate | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com.

Google Research Publication: BigTable

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Bigtable is a distributed storage system for managing structured data that is designed to scale to a very large size: petabytes of data across thousands of commodity servers. Many projects at Google store data in Bigtable, including web indexing, Google Earth, and Google Finance. These applications place very different demands on Bigtable, both in terms of data size (from URLs to web pages to satellite imagery) and latency requirements (from backend bulk processing to real-time data serving). Despite these varied demands, Bigtable has successfully provided a flexible, high-performance solution for all of these Google products. In this paper we describe the simple data model provided by Bigtable, which gives clients dynamic control over data layout and format, and we describe the design and implementation of Bigtable.

via Google Research Publication: BigTable.

EMG Technology Sues Google for Infringing Its Mobile Device Patent

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Elliot A. Gottfurcht, Managing Member and lead inventor of EMG’s patent portfolio, explains, “Google’s Chrome Mobile Browser directly infringes the ‘196 patent by displaying mobile webpages on smart phones and tablets using EMG’s patented simplified navigation system, which permits users to navigate a touch screen with unique inputs and to manipulate the screen for zooming and scrolling. Mobile devices, such as smart phones and tablets, made by Motorola (which is owned by Google) and Samsung, use Google’s Chrome Mobile Browser to navigate mobile web sites using EMG’s patented simplified navigation system.”

via EMG Technology Sues Google for Infringing Its Mobile Device Patent – MarketWatch.

Google pledges computing without limits in Compute Engine cloud platform

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With its Google Compute Engine launched Thursday, Google is offering an IaaS (infrastructure as a service) cloud for running Linux virtual machines on the same infrastructure that powers the company itself.

via Google pledges computing without limits in Compute Engine cloud platform | Cloud Computing – InfoWorld.

From:  Where Google Computing Engine fits in

But how will customers decide whether to use Google Compute Engine, Rackspace Cloud, Windows Azure, HP Cloud, or another IaaS provider? For an informed answer to that question, InfoWorld turned to Michael Crandell, CEO and founder of RightScale, the cloud-management services company that helps customers work with everything from Amazon EC2 to Microsoft Azure.

Google I/O Day Two

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Today’s first big theme: Chrome. Tim reports: “Brian Rakowski VP for (and inventor of) Chrome, shows device transferability among devices of tabs, bookmarks, with a multi-part contrived story, looking at his opened tabs from home and work, etc. from a phone running Chrome. Not only can open tabs from there, but (and this is cool), ‘we’ve made sure the back button works as well.’ So you can open a page from a different computer, and have the browsing history of that tab as well. This Chrome syncing affects settings, bookmarks, etc. Also, for those transferred tab pages, pre-loading! So when you click on a tab, it’s been loading and now should be read, BAM.” As before we’ll be updating the story live (below the fold) with his updates as they stream in.

via Google I/O Day Two – Slashdot.

Gmail Becomes World’s Largest Email Service; Google Continues To Unseat Microsoft

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In January, Google mentioned in its earnings call that it had about 350 million monthly active users on Gmail; six months later, about 75 million more users had flocked to Gmail, growing the total number to 425 million monthly active users. By this measure, Gmail has dethroned Hotmail.

via Gmail Becomes World’s Largest Email Service; Google Continues To Unseat Microsoft – International Business Times.

Google Generates 6 Times More Revenue Per User than Facebook

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Facebook is back in the spotlight today after raising $500 million from Goldman Sachs (NYSE:GS) and a Russian investor. With all the hype that Facebook may go public in the near future, now is a great time to take a look at whether Facebook users are particularly valuable when compared to the competition:

via Google Generates 6 Times More Revenue Per User than Facebook (NASDAQ:AMZN, NASDAQ:EBAY, NASDAQ:GOOG, NASDAQ:YHOO, NASDAQ:BIDU, NYSE:GS) | Wall St. Cheat Sheet.

This story dated 1/5/2011.  I have not looked at how they tabulated these numbers but statistics can favour whoever wrote the mathematical  formula.  Interesting nonetheless.