Google Data Center Pictures: Year in Review

Google Data Center Pictures: Year in Review

Google Data Center Building

Google Data Center Pictures: Year in Review

Google Data Center Pictures: Year in Review :In 2012 Google opened the doors up to some of it’s data centers in the typical colorful fashion we expect from Google. Hyper-scale content and cloud providers are ultra secretive about their trade secrets. Facebook’s Opencompute project is probably the most notable transparent architectures with regard to how they build their compute and storage nodes.

There is scale and Google scale

“You benefit from the efficiency of Google data centers and our decade of running them”…”We’ve worked very hard to get the cost of computing down for a decade, and we’re passing the savings on to you.” – Urs Hoezle Google Senior VPThe sheer scale of nearly 1 million servers distributed globally is pretty awe inspiring. It helps to remember that any good architecture scales if done in a modular fashion. The distributed systems at Google are one of, if not the best in the business. When people leave Google, a year or two later the reverse-engineered product emerges. Google has been one of the handful of consumers that through purchasing volume and R&D have turned the industry into a consumer driven market rather than the past two decades of manufacturers dictating the architectures and products.

Why is Google Opening the Data Center Doors?

The likely reason for 2012 being the Google data center PR blitz is to make personal connections with potential Google Compute Engine (GCE). GCE is Google’s cloud platform that is striving to be the one to start chipping at Amazon’s coveted AWS market share. The cloud computing market share is ripe disruption with AWS operating with next to no competition since its entrance into the public cloud. Amazon’s agility to reduce CapEx and squeeze efficiencies will be important in remaining the incumbent.

The final lesson from Google is, put loud colors on everything in your data center to make it look technically advanced. It even works with dirty old backup tapes.

Some Google Data Center Pictures From 2012
Google Data Center

Google Data Center At Night

Google Data Center Tape Robot

Google Data Center Destroy Hard Drives

Google Still Uses Tape Backup

If Only All Servers Came With Cool Lights

Google Data Centers Have Plenty of Cable Tray Space

Google Data Center Hot Air Aisle Behind Servers

Google Data Center Cable Management

Google Data Centers World Wide

Google Data Center Racks

Google Data Center Water Pipes

Google Data Center: Helsinki

Google Data Center: Night Time

Google Data Center: Chillers

Google Data Center: LEDs Make Everything Look Cooler

Google Data Center: Colors Have Purpose Also

Google Data Center: More Pipe Farms

Google Data Center Cooling Strategy

Google Data Center Server Cabling

Google Data Center More Backup Tape

Google Data Center Break Room

Google Data Center Easter Egg

Google Data Center Storm Trooper Security

Google Droid Waving Bye

Google Data Center: Not Bad Views Either

Google Data Center: People


Thanks for stopping by and I will see you in 2013, Have a great holidays!


About the Author

Brent SalisburyI have over 20 years of experience wearing various hats from, network engineer, architect, ops and software engineer. More at Brent's LinkedInView all posts by Brent Salisbury →


  1. Those photos are just fantastic. Dare I say even… beautiful.

  2. Brent SalisburyBrent Salisbury12-26-2012


    Heya John! I agree, it is a combination of art, science and discipline to pull off pictures and process like that. Surely there is some rust that isn’t getting exposed to the camera 🙂 You can only “tour” one or two of the DCs with street view. Have a great holidays buddy!
    -Brent

  3. hostgator promohostgator promo05-25-2013


    Hey there just wanted to give you a quick heads up.
    The text in your post seem to be running off the screen
    in Chrome. I’m not sure if this is a format issue or something to do with internet browser compatibility but I thought I’d post to let you know.
    The design and style look great though! Hope you get the issue solved soon.
    Cheers

  4. Brent SalisburyBrent Salisbury05-25-2013


    Hey thanks a bunch for the info! Appreciate it!

  5. DCIM softwareDCIM software10-16-2013


    Awesome data center pictures! Is there a license available for some of these, or free for use?

    • Brent SalisburyBrent Salisbury10-20-2013


      Thanks and feel free to use and credit if you like. Thanks for stopping by.
      -Brent

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