Google’s Data Center Security Video

Google’s Security and Data Protection in a Google Data Center video is viral with 152,000 views.  Yesterday when I checked it was at 110,000 since posting on Apr 13, 2011.  But, checking the comments started 3 days ago, so most likefly the video has been up on Youtube since April 13, but released Apr 23.  Google could not have asked for better timing to be right after AWS outage.

What I found interesting was one article saying the video is related to Facebook’s Open Compute Project.

The media has juxtaposed the data center video with Facebook's Open Compute project, in which the company open sourced its data center hardware and schematics earlier this month.

Facebook's move was an open-source olive branch to the computing community at large, but it was also a calculated play to urge the creation of less expensive, commodity servers.

Google's video tour is an educational play designed to assure enterprises and federal agencies considering a Google Apps collaboration software contract of its stringent data security.

I know Google guys have been thinking of this video for over 6 months to promote the security of data in Google data centers.  Has Facebook been thinking about the Open Compute Project for over 6 months?

The Register highlights the hard drive security

Nonetheless, when a hard drive fails or no longer exhibits prime performance and must be disposed of, Google uses multiple techniques to ensure that the data can't be read at all. It overwrites the data, and then it uses a complete disk read to verify that all data has been removed. When disk reaches the end of its life, Google will then destroy it. This involves pushing a steel piston through the center of the drive and then shredding it into relatively small pieces. The remains of the drives are then sent to recycling centers.

The Crusher: Google gives hard drives the piston treatment

What doesn’t get mentioned that I think is cooler than the low tech ways to handle hard drive security is Google’s shard methods to protect data and achieve scalability, but this is way too geeky for most users to be interested in.

We can hope that with the popularity of the video and news coverage that Google and others will create more data center videos.

Could you imagine a documentary style video of AWS outage?  Would the video be a comedy or drama?  A video of Sony’s playstation outage would be a tragedy, or comedy if you are from the Xbox Live team.

The Media Data Center War - Apple started with Music, Amazon started with Books, who will win?

Engadget reports reports on the Amazon Android powered Tablet for the Summer of 2011.

Amazon to take on Apple this summer with Samsung-built tablet?

By Thomas Ricker posted Apr 21st 2011 6:35AM

You really should pay attention when Engadget's founder, Peter Rojas speaks about the tech industry. Especially when he leads into a story like this:

It's something of an open secret that Amazon is working on an Android tablet and I am 99 percent certain they are having Samsung build one for them.

Which makes sense to follow the announcement of Amazon's cloud drive.

One data center guy I was talking to said the Apple guys aren't worried about Cloud Drive as Amazon will get sued.  I made the point that that makes sense if you are Apple, but not necessarily if you are Amazon.  Apple has had media companies like Apple Records battling the company for decades.  Amazon is looking to disrupt Apple's business models.  The huge margins Apple makes are opportunities for Bezo's crowd.

The battle for who will win the next media battle will be fought in the cloud in addition to the devices.  The data centers are key to the strategy. I place my bets on Amazon.  The media and loyal Mac users will be on Apple.  Amazon's thin retail margins has forced them to think efficiently, whereas Apple promotes think differently.

BTW, thinking efficiently usually aligns with less energy which is better for a green data center.

Greenpeace flies a blimp over Facebook HQ promoting a Greener Data Center

MercuryNews has an article with a picture of a Greenpeace sponsored blimp asking Facebook to join the energy revolution.

The environmental organization Greenpeace flies a blimp over Facebook's Palo Alto, Ca. headquarters on Thursday, April 14. Greenpeace has been urging Facebook to "UnFriend Coal" and to stop using coal and nuclear to power its data centers. ( courtesy of Greenpeace )

The Greenpeace Green IT team was at Green:NET 2011 presenting its report on data centers.  There was one company with their data center team in the Greenpeace presentation, but not Google, Apple, Yahoo, Microsoft, or any of the others in the Greenpeace report.

In a report released Thursday, Greenpeace, the environmental organization, takes companies like Apple (AAPL), Facebook and Twitter to task for powering their data centers with what it calls "dirty energy." Greenpeace wants tech companies to commit to clean, renewable energy sources, saying the world is running out of time as electricity demand skyrockets and the planet faces the potential for catastrophic climate change.

"We need to get off of coal as fast as we can," said Gary Cook, the report's author and head of Greenpeace's Cool IT Campaign. "Tech companies see themselves as being innovators, but when it comes to electricity they are buying it off the rack as cheaply as they can. If our campaign is successful, no one will want to be associated with coal."

Some may think the Greenpeace guys will go away, but my bets are this is the beginning.

Amazon's outages creates opportunity for Cloud Services that are transparent

Greenpeace tried to get information about Amazon Web Services cloud environment to determine an environmental impact.  Greenpeace scored Amazon an F.

Geekwire has an written by a Seattle SW developer Keith Smith discussing the communication problem from Amazon and lack of transparency.

Today that lack of transparency has continued.

As problems continued throughout the day, we experienced the obvious frustration from the system failure. But Amazon’s communication failure was even more alarming.

7:30a on Apr 22.  Keith Smith's company Big Door is still down.

Isn't a bit ironic that the cloud is built on open source software, yet the services delivered look no different than proprietary closed systems when you dig for answers to tough questions like an environmental impact and what caused an outage?

Is cloud transparency a future feature differentiator?  Right now all the clouds are pretty obscure.

Google and Yahoo set pace of Greener Data Center discussion, Om Malik moderates #greennet session

At Green:Net 2011 Om Malik hosted a discussion with Yahoo's Chris Page and Google's Bill Weihl on "Greener Data Center"

It was great to see that Om Malik chose the Green Data Center topic for GreenNet.  His choice for interviewing were Google and Yahoo.  Not Facebook.  Not Amazon.  Not Microsoft, who chose to speak about on how software, the web and cell phone are creating more efficient systems, but Microsoft was not on Om's panel.

Here are a few questions that I found were interesting to share with you.

Om Malik asks with Google's 100MW wind power purchase is this an indicator of Google's future site selection, making renewable energy as part of data center site?  Bill Weidl did  a good job of avoiding the questioning by making the point that he hopes more users  take into account energy composition in site selection.  The 100 MW wind power contract Google announced is 180 miles from Google's data center so the power doesn't go directly to a Google data center, but the wind power is on the same power grid as its data center.

Om says he has seen the media discuss the merits of building a big or small data center.  Is it better to build big or small?  Chris Page answers that Yahoo's approach is to build modular.  Bill answers Google builds what is most efficient.

One question I think Om asked for the audience is to have Chris and Bill decode PUE.  I hope you know the answer to this one.

Here is a live coverage page that you can go to see more.  http://gigaom.com/cleantech/greennet-2011-live-coverage/