Google increasing capacity in Hamina, reported spending $150 mil euros

Sometimes I wonder if this really news, but it is good to reference when there is a public disclosure.  Google’s data center group is adding capacity.  Ooh, I am so excited. :-)  What would be really big news is if Google was shutting down facilities.  Not going to happen any time soon.  Reuters reports on the latest that there will be a Nov 4 event for Google in Hamina.

After an initial investment of 200 million euros ($275.65 million), it announced on August 12 an additional 150 million in spending.

Sources said the company plans to announce another round of investment in early November, although it was unclear how much it would be. A government official confirmed Prime Minister Jyrki Katinen would attend an event at Hamina on November 4.

Obamacare isn't broken, it worked to maximize profit and control like any other government IT project

It is funny to watch so many people think fixing the Obamacare/healthcare.gov website is a technical issue where resources can be sent in to repair the site.  Some do discuss the fix is not easy like Politico’s post.

“We would have done this” for a fraction of the price, “and it would have been working perfectly,” Marc Benioff, founder and CEO of Bay Area global cloud provider Salesforce.com, said in an interview. “But we were turned away.”

Obamacare was like any other big government IT project.  Lots of competitive bids for those who know how to play the rules of Washington DC.  Once you win, you do things according to the rules of government IT.  You make progress, give lots of long status reports.  Then ship to hit an Oct 1 deadline.

Government IT comprises a network of systems that have developed over the past half-century, said Mike Hettinger, the Software & Information Industry Association’s director of public sector innovation. In some cases, thousands of homegrown networks feed into one payroll or financial system. Whereas a scrappy Silicon Valley startup could wipe out a project that doesn’t work, a much larger government agency doesn’t have that luxury.

These systems usually get built around schedules, such as the Oct. 1 deadline that contractors rushed to meet. Commercial companies don’t tend to have such a locked time frame.

The lack of functionality for Obamacare is not anything new for a government IT project.  You then wait for the next budget cycle and get more money to fix things.

There are some projects that work well in government IT, and this is why the process continues.  Standardize on one methodology that applies to all government projects, all employees, and all citizens.  Collect all requirements, and use these requirements to increase the complexity and budget of the project.  And, this is where the conflicts start to happen between those who understand how software should work vs. those who don’t.

Fixing Obamacare will change how the profit is made and who is in control of the project.  Once there are new rules for where the money is to be made and who is in control, then Obamacare will work in a new way.  Will this fix things for end users.  Not necessarily.

Google's West and East Coast Floating Data Centers, taking a trip to South America?

CNET news reports on the 2nd spotting of Google’s Floating data center in Portland, Maine.

The registration on the Portland barge is "BAL 0011," which ties it to the barge in San Francisco Bay, which has the registration number "BAL 0010." Both are owned by By and Large, LLC.

(Credit: Tom Bell/Portland Press Herald)

If that wasn't enough to establish that the two are related, it's also clear that both were built on barges owned by the same company. The one in San Francisco Bay was built on top of a barge with the registration "BAL 0010," while the one in Portland harbor is on a barge with the registration "BAL 0011." According to online documents, both are owned by By and Large, LLC. That company, which has a miniscule online profile, is also the current tenant in Hangar 3, an immense building alongside the pier where the San Francisco Bay project is under construction.

With one in the SF Bay and the other in Portland that puts a Floating data center on each coast.  I wouldn’t think there is a plan to send these cross the Pacific and Atlantic.  Seems easier to build these in Taiwan or Amsterdam if you wanted them on the other side of the Ocean and minimize the risk of making a cross ocean excursion.

It will be interesting where these show up.  I would guess if the floating data centers move, they would move to South America to provide data center capacity like I wrote about earlier.

Google Floating Data Center makes the news, what are some facts?

Run a Google News Search on “google floating” and you get a range of articles.  Here are a few

Is Google building a hulking floating data center in SF Bay? CNET - ‎4 hours ago‎ SAN FRANCISCO -- Something big and mysterious is rising from a floating barge at the end of Treasure Island, a former Navy base in the middle of San Francisco Bay. And Google's fingerprints are all over it. It's unclear what's inside the structure, which ...   Google May Be Launching Floating Data Centers Off US Coasts Mashable - ‎16 hours ago‎ Google, one of the world's largest users of data, may finally be making good on a five year-old patent to build offshore data centers — cooled and powered by the ocean, and potentially beyond reach of the government. An investigative report by CNET Friday ...   Google could have a floating data center in Maine, too CNET (blog) - ‎17 hours ago‎ As CNET reported Friday, it looks very much like Google has been building a floating data center made from shipping containers on a barge in the middle of San Francisco Bay. But it may not be the only one of its kind. Google has not responded to multiple ...   Google it? Search-engine giant may be behind secret structures TheDay.com - ‎5 hours ago‎ The lack of windows and egress stairs on the exterior of the buildings rule out the possibility that they are floating hotels, said Joel Egan, the principal at Cargotecture, which designs buildings using shipping containers. "If it's Google, it's probably a data center ...   Google's Latest Data Center May Be Floating In San Francisco Bay ReadWrite - ‎17 hours ago‎ Google may be building a secret data center on a barge currently floating in San Francisco Bay, CNET's Daniel Terdiman reports in a convincing, though still circumstantial, article. If true, it would represent the Internet giant's latest attempt to translate some of ...   A Google data center, floating in the ocean? Android Community - ‎18 hours ago‎ If you like speculation, try this on for size. A giant, floating something has been spotted in the San Francisco Bay Area. Some are speculating that it's Google in nature, and could be afloating data center. While no clear ties to Google are present, speculation ...

So what are a few facts to think about.

Google running its Hamina data center has been gaining experience running  sea water cooling system.  No one else has this.

So where would Google put a floating data center?  Not in the path of hurricane.  Although if it was with advance notice you could disconnect it and move it.

Putting a floating data center in the US off the coast of NYC one of the highest density areas could work, but why?

How about this where it could make sense is to float it in for a deployment like  portable cell tower.

My suggestion is that the search and rescue team simply deploy portable cell phone towers and continually ping/call their cell phone numbers or listen for their calls, in addition to the traditional S&R.

The basic technology already exists. There are portable towers (http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Cell_on_wheels) that could be driven along the suspected route the missing folks took. If the search area is large, the tower could even be designed to be suspended from a helicopter to increase the range. There are portable towers that appear to be small enough for this (http://www.survivalistboards.com/showthread.php?t=166036).

Moving a barge is not quick, so you would normally want weeks of advance notice, not hours or days.

With the World Cup Soccer and Olympic games in Brazil there is going to be a local requirement for Google Services.  But, anyone who has worked in Brazil knows it can be some of the most expensive data center space when you add up the TCO.  Google is extremely good at looking at TCO.  And it would seem possible when you look at the costs and issues to ramp up enough capacity for Brazil it is cheaper to deploy a floating data center.  Anchor it far enough offshore and you are in International waters.  Put it close to the fiber access coming in from Int’l carriers and you can bypass the local Telecom.

BTW, part of the reason I think these are facts is I have gone through this thinking exercise years ago and it does make sense.  Especially when you only need the capacity for burst and not long term.  

Want to work at Amazon? Can you stand the heat at the executive level?

I was talking to a Microsoft friend and he was saying how many amazon employees are showing up at Microsoft.  For a while there were a large amount of Microsoft employees were leaving for amazon.  Some of the more visible ex-Microsoft employees are Brian Valentine and Charlie Kindle.  These guys would be ones who would be close enough to feel the heat from Jeff Bezos.

Here is an article with 4 ex-Amazon executives in Puget Sound Business Journal.

Uncomfortable. Adversarial. A Darwinian struggle for survival.

These are all terms used to describe Amazon CEO Jeff Bezos’ relationship with his staff, according to four former Amazonians who have branched off from the e-commerce giant to start their own businesses.

One of the things you would need to get used to Amazon is doing more with less.  Way, way less.

“I would go home and throw stuff. One of my roommates was on a team where 20 people were doing the work of 300 engineers. We were all always on pager duty,” Selinger said. “But as I reflect on it, the problems we were tackling ended up having real value. We weren’t trying to solve things that obviously didn’t matter.”