Google Data centers • Hacker News Board

Re: Google Data centers

#41

Post by deelowe » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 7:22 PM UTC

nemesisj wrote: post #21

deelowe wrote: post #19

Earlier quoted context omitted.

They hired quite a bit more than 4 people and there are positions open currently.

The article linked above mentioned one person hired at the time of its writing (2007). Obviously it's six years later now, but even if they hired two hundred, it would still be a staggering investment by the local government ($1 million per job). Again, I'm not sure what the point here is as US States are not much different from countries in a race to the bottom, other than sooner or later you hit bottom. I mainly ju…

It's much more than that. Any estimate I've seen regarding staffing has always been way off. I can't give specifics, but trust me, it's no where near 4 people even if we exclude contractors and facility support staff.

Re: Google Data centers

#42

Post by aray » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 9:26 PM UTC

mikeyouse wrote: post #17

nemesisj wrote: post #14

Heh - one of those data centers (Lenoir) was the focus of quite a bit of optimism in the Piedmont area of North Carolina a few years ago. I can't find the news articles, but essentially, massive tax benefits were provided to Google and they built their data center and proceeded to hire like 4 people, b/c, you know, it's not a factory. This was apparently a surprise to everyone who thought a new googleplex was somehow…

$212 million in incentives for a three-hundred-billion dollar company, ugh. http://www.businessweek.com/stories/2007-07-22/the-high-cost...

(NCer here) The big thing in a lot of rural North Carolina is that there was a huge textile processing and paper processing industry that's slowly been losing ground to overseas manufacturing.

The end result is that many of these counties have extremely large power and water production capabilities built up and no one to sell to. The datacenters are attractive because they will actually buy these utilities at much higher capacities than the community would otherwise. This is worth much more than any small number of jobs created.

Re: Google Data centers

#43

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 9:36 PM UTC

deelowe wrote: post #41

nemesisj wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article linked above mentioned one person hired at the time of its writing (2007). Obviously it's six years later now, but even if they hired two hundred, it would still be a staggering investment by the local government ($1 million per job). Again, I'm not sure what the point here is as US States are not much different from countries in a race to the bottom, other than sooner or later you hit bottom. I mainly ju…

It's much more than that. Any estimate I've seen regarding staffing has always been way off. I can't give specifics, but trust me, it's no where near 4 people even if we exclude contractors and facility support staff.

[deleted]

Re: Google Data centers

#44

Post by hindsightbias » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 10:30 PM UTC

ChuckMcM wrote: post #36

These pictures don't do the diversity of the infrastructure justice. (perhaps that is intentional) When I was at Google they had just finished deciding that 'containerized' data centers were not a benefit and had just opened up the buildings in The Dalles, when I left they had brought up the Netherlands and their midwest data centers. Besides the different environments (can you use external air for cooling or not, et…

> diversity

Still looks like a sausage fest.

Re: Google Data centers

#45

Post by michaelt » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:17 PM UTC

deelowe wrote: post #41

nemesisj wrote: post #21

Earlier quoted context omitted.

The article linked above mentioned one person hired at the time of its writing (2007). Obviously it's six years later now, but even if they hired two hundred, it would still be a staggering investment by the local government ($1 million per job). Again, I'm not sure what the point here is as US States are not much different from countries in a race to the bottom, other than sooner or later you hit bottom. I mainly ju…

It's much more than that. Any estimate I've seen regarding staffing has always been way off. I can't give specifics, but trust me, it's no where near 4 people even if we exclude contractors and facility support staff.

Employees mean parking spaces. Let's look at the facility using Google's super satellite photos.

I see eight by the guardhouse, one occupied; a further 20 by one data centre, 8 occupied; and a final 23 near another data centre, 6 occupied. Totals: 53 spaces, 15 occupied.

I don't see any bicycle parking or signs of indoor or underground car parks, and there are no sidewalks or bus stops nearby that I can see. This is the middle of the day - I doubt the night shift is any busier.

My money's on 15-30 employees on the day shift, plus a night shift for an additional 4-8 employees depending on shift patterns. So 19-39 total employees. If I'm wrong, I'd love to know how those employees are getting to work :)

Re: Google Data centers

#46

Post by [deleted] » Tue, Dec 10, 2013, 11:45 PM UTC

hindsightbias wrote: post #44

ChuckMcM wrote: post #36

These pictures don't do the diversity of the infrastructure justice. (perhaps that is intentional) When I was at Google they had just finished deciding that 'containerized' data centers were not a benefit and had just opened up the buildings in The Dalles, when I left they had brought up the Netherlands and their midwest data centers. Besides the different environments (can you use external air for cooling or not, et…

> diversity Still looks like a sausage fest.

[deleted]

Re: Google Data centers

#47

Post by gbin » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 12:30 AM UTC

miu9089 wrote: post #4

Hmm... no mention here of how NSA are granted direct access to Google data. The website must need updating. A shiny website can't gloss over Google's close collusion with the NSA as revealed by The Guardian. Their desperate PR attempts will backfire until they make public and clear statements to improve their transparency.

hey FUD guy: we had a ton of revelations by Snowden but this is not one of them. I would not stay at Google if I had any evidence the security team had intentionally compromised the security of our users period. And I heard the same thing from a lot of different Googlers. Accusing random people of random actions is very easy but the burden of proof is on your side then. I could say mimicking your reasoning: "Prove me you are not a perfect human imitation impersonated by an alien, prove it ! You see you are an alien in disguise!"

Re: Google Data centers

#48

Post by sargun » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 1:02 AM UTC

hindsightbias wrote: post #44

ChuckMcM wrote: post #36

These pictures don't do the diversity of the infrastructure justice. (perhaps that is intentional) When I was at Google they had just finished deciding that 'containerized' data centers were not a benefit and had just opened up the buildings in The Dalles, when I left they had brought up the Netherlands and their midwest data centers. Besides the different environments (can you use external air for cooling or not, et…

> diversity Still looks like a sausage fest.

Women don't tend to apply to datacenter management jobs much. On top of that, there hasn't been much outreach to women in this career field. Since the datacenter management field is a race to the bottom in terms of overheads, I doubt we'll see much either.

Re: Google Data centers

#49

Post by subigo » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 1:16 AM UTC

rbnio wrote: post #25

codfrantic wrote: post #18

Most of these pictures have been online for a while, I specifically remember that this[⊗] one was photoshopped because the machines in the racks left and right are mirror images of one another... [⊗] https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/gallery/#/all/23

The family of deer that "moved in" next to the Iowa data center [1] also looks quite photoshopped... [1] https://www.google.com/about/datacenters/gallery/#/places/2

Definitely not photoshopped. I see these deer everyday. In fact, there are quite a few more now.

Re: Google Data centers

#50

Post by 10098 » Wed, Dec 11, 2013, 1:19 AM UTC

miu9089 wrote: post #4

Hmm... no mention here of how NSA are granted direct access to Google data. The website must need updating. A shiny website can't gloss over Google's close collusion with the NSA as revealed by The Guardian. Their desperate PR attempts will backfire until they make public and clear statements to improve their transparency.

Scroogled!