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Google data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa Alphabet/Google
An overhead view of the server infrastructure in Google’s data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (Photo: Connie Zhou for Google)

Top 5 Data Center Stories, Week of Oct. 20

The Week in Review: Google brings you inside its data centers and talks about cooling, the petascale supercomputers Blue Waters and NCAR Yellowstone are launched, and RagingWire plans a major new campus in Ashburn's Data Center Alley.

An overhead view of the server infrastructure at the Google data center in Council Bluffs, Iowa. (Photo: Connie Zhou for Google)

For your weekend reading, here’s a recap of five noteworthy stories that appeared on Data Center Knowledge this past week. Enjoy!

Google Brings You Inside Its Data Centers - Google has provided the most comprehensive look yet inside its mighty Internet infrastructure, releasing a portfolio of images of its data centers that reveal the technology powering its online information empire. The gallery titled Where the Internet Lives features images from Connie Zhou, who specializes in architecture photography, and showcases the beauty and complexity of the facilities that power the Internet.

How Google Cools Its Armada of Servers - Google has shared some of its best practices over the years, but other parts of its data center operations have remained under wraps. One of the best-kept secrets has been the details of its cooling system, which allows Google to pack tens of thousands of servers into racks. Google Senior Director of Data Centers Joe Kava discussed the design of its cooling system with Data Center Knowledge.

NCAR Weather Supercomputer Comes Online - The NCAR-Wyoming Supercomputing Center in Cheyenne, Wyoming opens its doors today, unleashing a powerful supercomputer on an ambitious agenda of experiments that will improve predictions of earthquakes, hurricanes and tornadoes. The NCAR center is home to Yellowstone, a new 1.5-petaflop IBM supercomputer – enough power to place among the world’s top 20 supercomputers.

Petascale Power: Blue Waters Supercomputer Launches - On Monday the NCSA (National Center for Supercomputing Applications) held Petascale Day to launch its Blue Waters supercomputer and examine the true impact and meaning of a petaflop of computing power.

RagingWire Plans Major Data Center Campus in Ashburn - Another major data center is coming to “Data Center Alley” in Ashburn, Virginia. RagingWire Data Centers has agreed to buy 75 acres of land from Loudoun County, and plans to build up to 750,000 square feet of data center space on the property.

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