A Closer Look at Google’s European Data Centers

An exterior view of the Google data center near Groningen in the Netherlands. (Photo taken by Erwin Boogert)

Google’s purchase of land in Austria for a possible data center highlights the global nature of the search giant’s infrastructure. Google’s existing European footprint includes several data centers in the Netherlands and one in Belgium, as well as peering centers in major European bandwidth hubs.

Erwin Boogert recently posted new photos of Google’s facility near Groningen in the Netherlands. Erwin originally shot pictures of the facility in 2004, but revisited in late October for a second look. Erwin is an IT journalist who has also put together a Google Maps mashup with more information about Google’s operations in the Netherlands and Belgium.

Google Sorts 1 Petabyte of Data in 6 Hours

Google has rewritten the record book and perhaps extended the benchmark for sorting massive volumes of data. The company said Friday that it had sorted 1 terabyte of data in just 68 seconds, eclipsing the previous mark of 209 seconds established in July by Yahoo. Google’s effort included 1,000 computers using MapReduce, while Yahoo’s effort featured a 910-node Hadoop cluster.

Then, just for giggles, they expanded the challenge: “Sometimes you need to sort more than a terabyte, so we were curious to find out what happens when you sort more and gave one petabyte (PB) a try,” wrote Grzegorz Czajkowski of the Google Systems Infrastructure Team. “It took six hours and two minutes to sort 1PB (10 trillion 100-byte records) on 4,000 computers. We’re not aware of any other sorting experiment at this scale and are obviously very excited to be able to process so much data so quickly.”

Read more on the Official Google Blog.

Google Eyes Austria for New Data Center

Google will build a new data center on this parcel of farmland near Kronstorf, Austria.

Google today is contemplating building a data center in Kronstorf, Austria, where it has purchased 185 acres of farmland for the project. The project has been in the works since May, when news of Google’s site location scouting trips in Austria was published on Twitter by Kronstorf residents.

UPDATE: Initial reports from AFP said Google had confirmed that it would build a data center at the Kronstorf site, the company says its process has not yet reached that stage.

“I’m pleased to confirm that we are looking at the potential opportunities offered to us by this site in Kronstorf, with regards to the possibility of building a data center facility,” a Google spokesperson told Data Center Knowledge. “This particular site has a number of features to recommend it - including a good environment in which to do business, excellent economic development team, strong infrastructure and the future possibility of attracting and retaining an excellent workforce.

“We have no immediate plans to start building on the site, as we will next proceed with some technical studies and design work. We are just at the stage of evaluating what future opportunities it might offer us, and we will keep you updated when our plans are firmed up.”

Kronstorf is a town of 3,000 near the city of Linz. The land purchased by Google is near several hydro-electric power plants on the river Enns, which would satisfy Google’s requirement for the use of renewable energy sources in its facilities.  Kronstorf also is close to major universities in Linz, Steyr and Hagenberg, which could supply a trained IT workforce.

Google Will Delay Oklahoma Data Center

Google will delay construction of its data center in Pryor, Oklahoma, the company confirmed today. The $600 million facility was scheduled to be completed in early 2009, but instead will go online sometime in 2010.

The administrator of the Mid-American Industrial Park in Pryor, where Google has purchased 800 acres of land, told the Tulsa World the slowing economy was a factor in Google’s decision to push back its construction timetable. But the company said it was staggering the deployment of new data center space after bringing several projects online in recent months. 

“Google’s data centers are crucial to providing fast, reliable services for our users and we’ve invested heavily in capacity to ensure we can meet existing as well as future demand,” a Google spokesperson said. “This means there is no need to make all our data centers operational from day one. We anticipate that the Pryor Creek facility will come into use within the next 12 to 18 months. Google remains committed to and excited about operating this facility in Mayes County.”

Google announced the Oklahoma data center project in May, 2007, when it purchased 800 acres of land in Pryor for a massive facility that would employ 100 workers with an average salary of $48,000. The Pryor project was the third of four data center construction projects Google announced in the first half of 2007. The search company has completed the first data center in its project in Lenoir, North Carolina and is preparing to begin production in its facility in Goose Creek, South Carolina. 

Google Scouts Data Center Sites in Australia

Google has been scouting data center locations in Australia, but has not yet decided whether to build a new facility there, according to local media reports. A team of five Google employees from the U.S. has been “involved in high-level discussions with local data center providers,” according to Australian IT. “While we’re investing in our Australian operations, we haven’t made any decisions about whether we’ll locate a data centre here,” said Google Australia spokesman Rob Shilkin.

A number of large educational institutions and governmental agencies in Australia have migrated to Gmail, Google’s webmail program. But some of these customers say transit costs to route e-mail to Google servers in U.S. data centers have mounted, and are pressing for a local data center to serve Australian customers.

A Look At Google’s Newest Data Center

A photo of Google's data center in Goose Creek, South Carolina.

On Monday we got a look at Microsoft’s “hangar bay” for data center containers inside its new Northlake, Illinois facility. We’ve also been told that one of the Google company-built data centers included in its energy efficiency data “could be a container data center.” So what might one of Google’s container data centers look like?

The above photo of Google’s brand-new data center in Goose Creek, South Carolina may provide a clue. The picture, snapped by Charleston-area news blog The Digitel clearly shows a section of the data center that is lighted and open to the elements, looking quite a bit like a parking deck. You can see larger copy of the image at Flickr.

Could this be Google’s version of the two-story approach used by Microsoft in Chicago, with a first story packed with containers and an upper floor using conventional racks? Or might the ”parking deck” serve another purpose?

Morgan Stanley Plans Tide-Powered Data Center

Morgan Stanley plans to spend more $400 million to build a huge data center in Scotland that will be powered by tidal energy, and may seek to lease the huge facility to Google upon its completion, according to UK media reports. Morgan’s plans for a data center driven by tidal power closely resemble elements of Google’s proposed floating data barges that use the ocean for power and cooling.

The data center is planned for Scotland’s Pentland Firth, which separates the Orkney Islands from the Scottish mainland, and would require about 150 megawatts of power, the Guardian reports. The data center would use grid power at first, but later generate its own energy using tide-powered turbines developed by Atlantis Resources Corp., in which Morgan Stanley is a major shareholder.  

Google has filed a patent for a floating data centers located 3 to 7 miles from shore, which would use wave action to generate electricity. Google’s patent describes “wave snakes”of floating cylinders like those developed by the UK company Pelamis. The patent also noted the potential to use tidal power systems to support a land-based data center, which is exactly what Morgan Stanley hopes to build in northern Scotland. Google would not comment specifically on the Morgan Stanley project, but is actively interested in developing renewable power sources for its data centers, including wave power and tidal power. 

Atlantis’ tidal power design is described as an underwater windmill, in which 60-foot blades are encased in cylinders on the ocean floor, and uses tidal flows to spin the blades, which can move in either direction to benefit from incoming and outgoing todes. Atlantis is currently testing its technology off the coast of Australia, and says each turbine may be able to generate 5 to 6 megawatts of power. The company has designed turbines for both shallow water and deep water.

Google Capex Eases to $452M in 3Q

Google (GOOG) spent $452 million on its infrastructure in the third quarter of 2008, which was its lowest investment in capital expenditures since the company began its data center building boom in early 2007. The third quarter total was well below the record $842 million Google spent on its data centers in the first quarter, as well as the $698 million second quarter total.  Here’s a look at the recent trend:     

The decline is likely explained by the company’s completion of construction on the first phase of its data center campuses in Lenoir, North Carolina and Goose Creek, South Carolina. Google is continuing work on data center construction projections in Pryot, Oklahoma and Council Bluffs, Iowa.

Google’s data center investment could surge again, however. In the company’s conference call with analysts this afternoon, CEO Eric Schmidt noted that capex is “a lumpy business, think about data centers going up. We have no plans of slowing down. You just see the nature of that lumpiness. Every extra unit of capacity is cheaper for us.”

Did Google, Intel Discuss Hotter Chip Specs?

Google’s practices on data center temperature have prompted discussions with Intel, according to The Register, which says Google has asked Intel to certify its chips to operate at temperatures five degrees warmer than its standard specs. Intel denies that it has extended any special guarantees to Google, which buys chips and motherboards directly from Intel for its custom web servers.

The story cites a former Google employee, who also says that using data center containers is ”now the norm” for Google. We reported last week that Google’s patented containers may be among the innovations helping it achieve exceptional energy efficiency ratings.

Google says it can operate its data centers at 80 degrees, and is among a growing number of companies advocating higher cooling set points as a strategy to save on data center power costs.

The Register story is also being discussed at Slashdot.

Google Opens South Carolina Data Center

Google has begun operating its new $600 million data center in Goose Creek, South Carolina. The company marked the occasion yesterday with a grand opening event for local residents and officials.

“All of us are at the epicenter of world-class, leading technology that we can all be proud of,” said Goose Creek Mayor Michael Heitzler, one of the local officials on hand for the event. Google also invited 50 local residents to attend, who were randomly selected from a larger group that registered for the event. Only residents of Berkeley County, where the facility is located, were eligible to attend. While the ceremony was held on the grounds, Google did not allow visitors inside the data center facility.