Google Data Centers
- Thread starter jballew7
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- Aug 3, 2006
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First guess would be traffic. You don't want everyone having to go to one central location for data. Think of it like a gas station. Do you want only one gas station in a world of 7 Billion or do you want multiple gas stations all over the world?
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-Wolf sends
Darkbreeze
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- Jun 24, 2014
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Latency and redundancy. If there was only one center, every place that was far from that center would take much longer to access data over the network/internet from that center. Plus, if something were to happen to the entire trunk coming out of that center, they'd be completely out of luck. Never keep all your eggs in one hat.
Those are kinda they thoughts I came too. But, 1 with the gas station example, couldn't they just add more pumps, or in this case servers? Then speed would be back up right?
2. With latency, I can see that proximity would aide in those close to the centers but wouldn't those far off still be sol?
2. With latency, I can see that proximity would aide in those close to the centers but wouldn't those far off still be sol?
Well there is network load balancing to start with, so many people use Google services that if they only had servers at one physical location the network just couldn't handle it. It's easier and a lot cheaper to build these centers around the world to have the services closer to the users than building new huge network lines going under the ocean to get the bandwidth needed. Also if you have a technical problem with a data center, due to cut out electricity or whatever problem, you can still have all the services working since the other sites will pick up where the one is cut out. Also some countries are starting to require companies like Google that they have to save the data from that country locally. Thats just to start with without going into too much detail.
Darkbreeze
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Adding servers does not increase speed nor does it reduce latency. Better to have the source two hundred miles away than two thousand, or five thousand. The further away the data is, the longer it takes to access and download it. The closer, generally, the faster.
Plus, as I said, and others have said, if there were a catastrophe that took out all the power on that grid, like a plane crash, earthquake or fire, nobody would have any access to that data and it could all be lost. With it spread around, thus creating redundancy, it's less likely to be be lost or create a situation where there is no option to reroute requests for that data to another source.
The catastrophe is most defiantly a factor I agree with. Just wondering of other reasons. For whatever reason this really intrests me. Also, suppose google did shut down this wouldn't prevent us from getting around on the Web right? Google se only provides a quick route to a site stored on a server, right?
Darkbreeze
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No, there is a lot of cached Google data that is probably not available anywhere else anymore, or was ever available anywhere else. For example, excerpts from out of print books that google has scanned and cached for the purpose of reference.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Books_Library_Project
This is just ONE example. There are probably literally thousands of other examples, all with thousands of referenced items or categories. Google is far more than just a search engine or service. It's like the umbrella corporation from Resident Evil, it either has it's hands in, or is entirely responsible for, a little bit and in some cases quite a lot, of everything.
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Google_Books_Library_Project
This is just ONE example. There are probably literally thousands of other examples, all with thousands of referenced items or categories. Google is far more than just a search engine or service. It's like the umbrella corporation from Resident Evil, it either has it's hands in, or is entirely responsible for, a little bit and in some cases quite a lot, of everything.
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