3 ms·
I wonder what percentage of GOOG's operating costs are power related (heating, cooling, electricity, etc). I imagine that it's probably their highest expense
by far33d 19y ago
I wonder what percentage of GOOG's operating costs are power related (heating, cooling, electricity, etc).
I imagine that it's probably their highest expense outside of salaries. Cheaper and cleaner power (generated independently off-grid) could help them solve serious issues w/ remote data centers and their operating margins.
- ivankirigin 19y agoOReilly: One of the first times I met Larry Page, long before Google went public, when he was still driving a bright blue VW bug, he was telling me how for Google, the annual energy cost of each processor they put online was greater than the cost of the processor itself. (This may actually have been lifetime energy cost. It's a long time and I don't remember exactly, so I don't want to put words in his mouth.) Energy is one of the key costs for anyone running a large server farm, and keeping that cost under control is a key element of competitive advantage. http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/11/google_energy_strategy.html http://radar.oreilly.com/archives/2007/11/google_energy_stra...
- far33d 19y agoThis becomes more and more true as your processors are more spread out all over the world, sometimes in remote locations. I heard google chooses data center locations based on proximity and access to power, which is probably very limiting.