Placeholder Image

Subtitles section Play video

  • MALE SPEAKER 1: A data centre's the brains of the Internet.

  • MALE SPEAKER 2: The engine of the Internet.

  • FEMALE SPEAKER 1: It is a giant building with a lot of power,

  • a lot of cooling and a lot of computers.

  • MALE SPEAKER 3: It's row, upon row, upon row of machines,

  • all working together to provide the services that

  • make Google function.

  • JOE KAVA: I love building and operating data centres.

  • I'm Joe Kava, Vice-President of Data Centres at Google.

  • I'm responsible for managing the teams globally that design,

  • build and operate Google's data centres.

  • We're also responsible for the environmental health

  • and safety, sustainability and carbon offsets for our data

  • centres.

  • This data centre, here in South Carolina,

  • is one node in a larger network of data centres

  • all over the world.

  • Of all the employees at Google, a very, very small percentage

  • of those employees are authorised to even enter

  • a data centre campus.

  • The men and women who run these data

  • centres and keep them up 24 hours a day, seven days a week,

  • they are incredibly passionate about what they're doing.

  • MALE SPEAKER 2: In layman's terms, what do I do here?

  • FEMALE SPEAKER 1: I typically refer to myself

  • as the herder of cats.

  • MALE SPEAKER 4: I'm an engineer.

  • MALE SPEAKER 3: Hardware site operations manager.

  • MALE SPEAKER 2: We keep the lights on.

  • MALE SPEAKER 1: And we enjoy doing it.

  • JOE KAVA: And they work very hard,

  • so we like to provide them with a fun environment where they can also

  • play hard as well.

  • FEMALE SPEAKER 2: We just went past the three-million-man-hour

  • mark for zero lost-time incidents.

  • Three million man-hours is a really long time,

  • and with the number of people we have on site, that

  • is an amazing accomplishment.

  • JOE KAVA: I think that the Google data centres really

  • can offer a level of security that almost no other company

  • can match.

  • We have an information security team

  • that is truly second to none.

  • You have the expression, "they wrote the book on that."

  • Well, there are many of our information security

  • team members who really have written

  • the books on best practices in information security.

  • Protecting the security and the privacy

  • of our users' information is our foremost design criterion.

  • We use various layers of higher-level security

  • the closer into the centre of the campus you get.

  • So, just to enter this campus, my badge

  • had to be on a pre-authorised access list.

  • Then, to come into the building, that

  • was another level of security.

  • To get into the secure corridor that leads to the data centre,

  • that's a higher level of security.

  • And the data centre and the networking rooms

  • have the highest level of security.

  • And the technologies that we use are different.

  • Like, for instance, in our highest-level areas,

  • we even use underfloor intrusion detection via laser

  • beams.

  • So, I'm going to demonstrate going into the secure corridor

  • now.

  • One, my badge has to be on the authorised list.

  • And then two, I use a biometric iris scanner

  • to verify that it truly is me.

  • OK, here we are on the data centre floor.

  • The first thing that I notice is that it's

  • a little warm in here.

  • It's about 80 degrees Fahrenheit.

  • Google runs our data centres warmer

  • than most because it helps with the efficiency.

  • You'll notice that we have overhead power distribution.

  • Coming from the yard outside, we bring in the high-voltage power

  • distributed across the bus bars to all of the customised bus

  • taps that are basically plugs, where we plug

  • in all the extension cords.

  • All of our racks don't really look like a traditional server

  • rack.

  • These are custom designed and built for Google

  • so that we can optimise the servers

  • for hyper-efficiency and high-performance computing.

  • It's true that sometimes drives fail,

  • and we have to replace them to upgrade them,

  • because maybe they're no longer efficient to run.

  • We have a very thorough end-to-end chain-of-custody

  • process for managing those drives

  • from the time that they're checked out from the server

  • til they're brought to an ultra-secure cage, where

  • they're erased and crushed if necessary.

  • So any drive that can't be verified as 100%

  • clean, we crush it first and then we

  • take it to an industrial wood chipper,

  • where it's shredded into these little pieces like this.

  • In the time that I've been at Googlefor almost six

  • and a half years nowwe have changed

  • our cooling technologies at least five times.

  • Most data centres have air-conditioning units

  • along the perimeter walls that force cold air under the floor.

  • It then rises up in front of the servers

  • and cools the servers.

  • With our solution, we take the server racks

  • and we butt them right up against our air-conditioning unit.

  • We just use cool water flowing through those copper

  • coils that you see there.

  • So the hot air from the servers is contained in that hot aisle.

  • It rises up, passes across those coils,

  • where the heat from the air transfers

  • to the water in those coils, and then

  • that warm water is then brought outside the data centre

  • to our cooling plant, where it is cooled down

  • through our cooling towers and returned

  • to the data centre.

  • And that process is just repeated over and over again.

  • To me, the thing that amazes me about Google and the data

  • centres is the pace of innovation

  • and always challenging the way we're doing things.

  • So, when people say that innovation in a certain area

  • is over, that we've kind of reached the pinnacle of what

  • can be achieved, I just laugh.

  • [MUSIC PLAYING]

MALE SPEAKER 1: A data centre's the brains of the Internet.

Subtitles and vocabulary

Click the word to look it up Click the word to find further inforamtion about it