Google: A Big Ass Battery in Every Server

By Michael Kanellos

Google has always kept its server technology under wraps. In 2006, I begged to interview the company on its server designs, especially how the company tied down the hard drive with Velcro. The Velcro makes for an easy swap.

I also wanted to interview the guy who ran the crash cart, the trolley with spare parts the technicians rolled around.

They said no.

The search giant, however, showed off its server design to reporters today. And one big surprise: the servers each come with their own 12-volt battery to ensure power stays on, says News.com’s Stephen Shankland.

Shankland writes more:

The company also revealed for the first time that since 2005, its data centers have been composed of standard shipping containers–each with 1,160 servers and a power consumption that can reach 250 kilowatts.

It may sound geeky, but a number of attendees–the kind of folks who run data centers packed with thousands of servers for a living–were surprised not only by Google’s built-in battery approach, but by the fact that the company has kept it secret for years. Ben Jai (Google’s server architect) said in an interview that Google has been using the design since 2005 and now is in its sixth or seventh generation of design.

“It was our Manhattan Project,” Jai said of the design.

Comments

[billp37:]

Interesting information for the reason that the US may be facing electricity shortages within the next several years. And the cost of electricity may increase substantially.

home.comcast.net/~bpayne37/pnmelectric...

Apr 02 09:09 AM

[John Petersen:]

It's difficult to tell for sure from the photo in the CNET article, but that sure looks like a small format lead acid battery to me.

Apr 02 10:21 AM