[ILUG] Google Job

[kevin lyda]

On Fri, Apr 02, 2004 at 12:37:40PM +0100, Conor Wynne wrote:
> Storage is bloddy expensive, and google would be using fibre arrays I
> would imagine and they can cost millions - vendor depending.
> But they have obviously thought this through, and its april 2nd so we know
> its not bull ;--0

it's my understanding that google mainly uses commodity hardware.
to get google's scale i would guess that they would have:

    1.  s/w to distribute data among many machines (note the google fs).
    2.  a system to bring up new machines with little human intervention
        behond physically moving them.
    3.  a system for identifying boxes behaving badly.  either a
        physical indicator on the box, or a print out, or some sort of
        pda based system.  i'd lean towards the middle one.  walk the
        machine room once a day and rip out dead boxes, put in new boxes.
    4.  an agreement with a computer company (or two) to pick up dead
        machines and drop of good ones - all within certain specs.

that leads to an efficient of labour and low equipment costs.  assuming
i'm anywhere close to right in my guess, i'd kind of hope they work at
making sure those machines are energy efficient, and that they or their
suppliers do more than just chuck the "dead" machines.

regardless of the solution, everything i've read about google indicates
they don't use exotic hardware solutions.

kevin

-- 
kevin at ie.suberic.net  ~  Would you put on your resume that 3,000 people
                         died due to your failure while you were in charge?

                         So why is George Bush?