It's been a day since Google showed the inside of its data centers and in watching the media react I decided to spend a bit more time looking at what Google has done. What I think almost everyone has missed is 8, yes eight data centers have photograph collections.
I had an e-mail conversation with the photographer and we both commented on how beautiful the Hamina area is. How many data center locations have a water front view and a sauna? Well it turns out many of Google's data centers have water front views, but not saunas.
This building in Hamina, Finland, holds the best of both worlds – a conference room for work and a sauna for after work. Both are available to employees whenever they like.
The Lenoir site looks quite nice in a night time view.
The Dalles has its waterfront view.
Belgium has its own water treatment plant, so you could say they have their internal waterfront view.
South Carolina has a rainwater retention pond that may get used in the future.
A peaceful scene outside our data center in Berkeley County, South Carolina. We're currently experimenting with this rainwater retention pond as another source to cool our systems.
Iowa has huge water storage tanks on site.
Water storage tanks make sure our data centers stay cool day or night.
Georgia shows its color coded pipes which includes the chilled water system.
Thousands of feet of pipe line the inside of our data centers. We paint them bright colors not only because it's fun, but also to designate which one is which. The bright pink pipe in this photo transfers water from the row of chillers (the green units on the left) to a outside cooling tower.
Oklahoma is one of Google's newest data centers. The cooling systems are modular. And, you could see modularity concepts used in the white space, but you don't see containers to put servers in.
Bright lights and the moon light light up our Mayes County data center. These modular units provide cooling for a portion of the center.
The Huffington Post | By Catharine Smith
Upon closer inspection, the trooper appears to be accompanied by a miniature R2D2. (Google, you old prankster, you.)