Sure it’s Google propaganda, but it’s interesting Google propaganda.
Joe Kava, VP of Google’s data center operations, walks us through a company facility in Berkeley County, South Carolina (I’ve provided a few highlights under the video for those who can’t or don’t want to watch):
Highlights:
- Only a small percentage of Google employees are authorized to even enter a data center campus.
- Yes, the building has a foosball table.
- Employees use scooters to traverse the massive building, at least when filming videos.
- “We just went past the 3-million man-hour mark for zero loss-time,” says a Googler. “Three million man hours is a really long time and with the number of people we have on site that is an amazing accomplishment.”
- “Protecting the security and the privacy of our users’ information is our foremost design criteria,” Kava says with a straight face.
- The facility’s multi-layered security include badges, biometric iris scanners, and “under-floor intrusion detection via laser beams.”
- The data center temperature is a toasty 80 degrees. “Google runs our data centers warmer than most,” says Kava, “because it helps with the efficiency.”
- Server racks are custom-designed and built.
- When drives fail “they are brought to an ultra-secure cage where they are erased and crushed if necessary.”
More info on the data center here. Pretty pictures here.
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