Inside The Data Center Where Google Stores All Its Data [Pictures]

Have you ever wondered how Google does what it does? What makes it perch at the top? Well, to reveal a part of it, Google has launched a website where the visitors are offered quite amazing photos taken inside Google Data Centers in U.S., Finland and Belgium. There are a total of eight data centers in the above mentioned countries and Google is building more in Hong Kong, Taiwan, Singapore and Chile.  The virtual tour of North Carolina data centre will also be made available in the street view being offered by Google. Before you dive into the amazing pictures, take a sec to commend Google for being there for us whenever we need it, thanks a lot Google!

It’s not just an amazing color display folks, welcome to campus network room where the fiber optic network usually works at a speed which is 200,000 times faster than your internet connection at home. Those yellow cable trays are for the fiber cables which are running throughout and making Google achieve what others cannot.

Did you know that the Council Bluffs Data Centre has over 115,000 sq. ft. of space available? Google sure is making great use of this space to help us search and browse efficiently.

Not just intricate building folks, you are looking at the steel beams which are supporting the whole structure while also acting like a backbone when it comes to distributing power.

Again a picture from Council Bluffs Data Centre and it shows the network room where plastic curtains are in place. Cold air is blown from the floor and these plastic curtains help keep the cold air in while keeping the hot air away.

Wow, great color scheme and sure looks like a playground! This is the water system for Google. The blue pipes bring cold water supply and the red pipes show the warm water its way back to the cooling area. (Picture is from Oregon Data Centre).

So Google does take the color scheme too seriously. These cables are different which are organized by different colors. Hence, you need not ask for the technical name of the cable but rather a simple “give me the red one” request would suffice.

LEDs being used smartly folks. These LEDs when showing blue color indicate that everything is working fine. LEDs are being used because of them being long lasting, efficient and well, bright!

Welcome to the server floor in Hamina, Finland. These require a huge amount of power and space to function efficiently and Google is making use of an old paper mill at this particular site. Two reasons for that; it’s a large structure and it’s quite close to Gulf of Finland’s water that can be used for cooling purposes.

Welcome to the tape library where Google keeps the backup data and makes use of robotic arms to load and/or unload tapes when and as required.

The capacity of this storage tank is roughly 900,000 liters and it is home to the water which will be sent to the data centre’s heart for cooling purposes.

Here’s another great example of how to be organized and efficient. Each server rack has four switches and they are attached to a different colored cable. This scheme is followed throughout the data centre and it helps during failure by making it easier to spot which needs repairing.

Take a peek behind the server aisle; quite a large assembly of fans will funnel hot air from the server racks into the cooling unit after which it will be re-circulated.

Here’s an image from the Dallas Data Centre in Oregon showing the steam rising above the cooling towers.

Even deer like to stay near Google Data Centre. (Council Bluffs, Iowa Centre)

Mike Bahma working on a motherboard which has been swapped out of server, if it cannot be repaired, Google will have it broken down into parts. These parts are then recycled.