3 ms·
With movable data centers, Google can easily move them across oceans, as popularity and usage of different Google services inevitably shifts across countries ov
by mrb 13y ago
With movable data centers, Google can easily move them across oceans, as popularity and usage of different Google services inevitably shifts across countries over time, in order to be closer to wherever their users are to reduce network latency.
For example an "Orkut data center" would have been very useful to Google in 2008, when they announced they were moving its operations to Brazil because somewhat unpredictably this is where their core user base developed the most: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Orkut
- dlib 13y agoThey would also be able to move operations to places where energy is cheaper or sea water temperature is cooler. In general, it could be used to minimize costs looking at a variety of factors. I'm still curious how they will connect to the mainland. A fibre connection would hamper the flexibility of having a boat. Employees would rather live on the mainland than on a boat. So perhaps they the boat is stationary and will enjoy the ample amount of cooling water and potential energy the waves create.
- Swannie 13y agoOr you could just shift the processes to a newly commissioned, and therefore cheaper per cpu/ram/storage per dollar!