- 4chan hell raisers finding fame brings heat?
- The 10 dumbest mistakes network managers make
- NetApp quits bidding war in face of EMC opposition
- CompuServe closes after 30 years
- Google to launch open-source Chrome OS this year
Google Inc. is on its way to becoming the McDonald's of data centers -- serving billions of bytes daily -- if it keeps up with what seems to be an extraordinary pace of building IT facilities.
Thus far this year, Google has announced that it is building new data centers in Lenoir, N.C., and Goose Creek, S.C., each costing $600 million. The Internet search and advertising vendor is on the verge of making a third announcement, this time in Oklahoma, and it has said it is looking at an additional site in South Carolina, near the city of Columbia.
Several of the new and prospective facilities, including one that Google built last year in The Dalles, Ore., (pop. 12,500) share some common characteristics. For those data centers, Google has selected or is considering rural locations where electricity is both plentiful and available at relatively low costs.
For example, The Dalles has a population of just 12,500 people but is the site of a namesake hydroelectric dam on the Columbia River. In North Carolina, the area that includes Lenoir (population 17,000) has a robust power grid built to support the furniture makers that once dominated the local economy.
Oklahoma news outlets reported late last week that Google was interested in the MidAmerica Industrial Park in Pryor Creek, a town of 8,659 people located in the northeastern part of the state about 30 miles from Tulsa. All Google will say about the Oklahoma site is that the company is evaluating it.
"We're just sitting here in a corner of a state -- out of sight, out of mind," said Sanders Mitchell, administrator of the MidAmerica complex. He said that with a bit of a chuckle, because his 7,000-acre industrial park may be the largest rural facility of its kind in the U.S.
The park includes a coal-fired electrical generating facility operated by the Grand River Dam Authority that can produce about 1,000 megawatts of power annually. According to a spokesman for the authority, it charges about 4.5 cents per kilowatt hour, which is similar to the electricity rates charged in the areas around The Dalles and Lenoir.
Google isn't saying how many other data centers it plans to build. But in its 2006 annual report, which was released early last month, the company said it has spent and will continue to spend "substantial amounts on the purchase and lease of data centers and equipment and the upgrade of our technology and network infrastructure."
Partner Content
Explore the Ultrium Edge
The powerful tape technology can address data security with tape encryption as well as long term data protection.
Find Out More
Disk and Tape Square Off
Discover what disk and tape really cost and which solution provides lower total cost of ownership and optimizes energy use for your organization
Download this White Paper
Don't Fall for the Myths
The Clipper Group explores the truth behind the myths of tape, digging into the misconceptions in the disk vs. tape debate.
Review this information
information examination
An examination of information security issues, methods and securing data with LTO-4 tape drive encryption
Read this analysis
Comment