Google vs. Microsoft, what goes around, comes around

Politico has an anti-trust article about Google's battle and how Microsoft is one of the main supporters of the anti-trust efforts.

Tech war: Google vs. Microsoft
By: Elizabeth Wasserman
February 9, 2011 04:38 AM EST

Google is under siege in Washington like never before — and it says an “anti-Google industrial complex” is to blame.
In an interview with POLITICO, a Google spokesman argued that a cabal of antitrust lawyers, lobbyists and public relations firms is conspiring against the Internet search giant. The mastermind? Google says it’s Microsoft.
Maybe it’s irony, or maybe it’s payback.

NY Mag also has an article on the same topic.

Microsoft Tries to Give Google a Taste of Its Own Antitrust Medicine

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Could Google be a Server Hardware supplier?

We all know Google builds their own server hardware.  From what Google has learned building their own servers, could they get in the server business selling Google appliances for those who want to own the infrastructure and not go to the cloud.

Why would I think this could happen because I took a look at Google's platform jobs and saw 2 EMC (electromagnetic compliance) job openings which would typically be done for regulatory approvals like EN, FCC, VCCI, ETSI, CISPR, Telcordia etc

Here is the list of Google job openings in the platform group. The EMC jobs are #2 and #3.

Google Mountain View – Platforms

If Google gets into the Mobile, and Tablet business.  Why not Server?

If anyone could turn the Server industry upside down Google could.

Or could Google change the hosting business by renting Google Servers in Google hosted data centers.  That is one way to get around security and regulatory issues with current cloud offerings.

When I look at the list of jobs, sure does like a hardware manufacturing team.  And, this is just the open positions.

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How important is Networking in Data Center Growth? Google has 29 open positions

With Verizon purchase of Terremark, it is interesting to watch the Telco industry figure out how to grow.

On the other side, looking at Google growing into the Telco space is interesting.  Check out these 29 open networking positions at Google.

Google Mountain View – Global Network Operations

Here is an interesting surprise.  Look at the last job Networking needs a technical program manager who focuses on Space and Power.

The role: Technical Program Manager, Space and Power

Technical Program Managers will plan, facilitate, and manage the deployment of new services purchased from third party vendors and suppliers worldwide. You will work closely with design and technical negotiation teams to assess space and power requirements to support new capacity demands. The technical program manager will be responsible for creating the facility designs and statements of work to guide build outs within new and existing locations. You will work closely with the technical negotiators to understand the terms of new contracts and arrangements including delivery targets and other technical requirements. You will manage all aspects of the site deployment process with vendor to include: site surveys, daily vendor management, walk through and final acceptance to ensure facilities are delivered on schedule and to specifications. Technical Program Managers will be responsible for facilitating communications between all relevant stakeholders both internal and external.

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Google's next server innovation, optics?

Someone asked a good question on what Google server hardware looks like.  Decided to go up and take a look at who Google is hiring and found a position for Optics Hardware engineer.

The role: Optics Hardware Engineer

As an Optics Hardware Engineer, you will be creating useful systems for emerging computing applications in the real world. You will apply your experience designing optical systems to our projects. As a member of the R&D team, your skills will guide early component and system-architecture choices toward optimal performance, manufacturability and cost approaches for constructing highly integrated devices. You will use optical simulation tools and work hands-on to bring designs to life. You will work with other Optical, Electrical, and Mechanical engineers to prototype designs and plan for scale-up.

Responsibilities:
  • Design, implement, debug and characterize optical systems geared for emerging applications.
  • Evaluate and improve current processes and components.
  • Carry new design concepts through exploration, development, and into deployment/mass production.
  • Prepare documentation both for internal R&D use and for transfer of products to manufacturing.
  • Collaborate with other team members, including optical, electronics, mechanical engineering, and operations staff.
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Google, Amazon, and Netflix comment on uptime 99.999%

NYTimes has a post on uptime.

99.999% Reliable? Don’t Hold Your Breath

By RANDALL STROSS

 

AT&T’s dial tone set the all-time standard for reliability. It was engineered so that 99.999 percent of the time, you could successfully make a phone call. Five 9s. That works out to being available all but 5.26 minutes a year.

The author was able to get Google.

As for moving to 99.999, well, that may never come. “We don’t believe Five 9s is attainable in a commercial service, if measured correctly,” says Urs Hölzle, senior vice president for operations at Google. The company’s goal for its major services is Four 9s.

Google’s search service almost reaches Five 9s every year, Mr. Hölzle says. By its very nature, it is relatively easy to provide uninterrupted availability for search. There are many redundant copies of Google’s indexes of the Web, and they are spread across many data centers. A Web search does not require constant updating of a user’s personal information in one place and then instantly creating identical copies at other data centers.

Amazon

One of those services, the Simple Storage Service, or S3, allows companies to store data on Amazon’s servers. “We talk of ‘durability’ of data — it’s designed for Eleven-9s durability,” says James Hamilton, a vice president for Amazon Web Services. That works out to a 0.000000001 percent chance of data being lost, at least theoretically.

And threw in a Netflix blog post.

One thing that Google and other companies offering Web services have learned to do is to keep software problems at their end out of the user’s view. John Ciancutti, vice president for personalization technology at Netflix, wrote on the company’s blog in December about lessons learned in moving its systems from its own infrastructure to that of Amazon Web Services. He said Netflix had adopted a “Rambo architecture”: each part of its system is designed to fight its way through on its own, tolerating failure from other systems upon which it normally depends.

“If our recommendations system is down, we degrade the quality of our responses to our customers, but we still respond,” Mr. Ciancutti said. “We’ll show popular titles instead of personalized picks. If our search system is intolerably slow, streaming should still work perfectly fine.”

Watch for availability to be marketed more.

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