Google's Server... the secret is revealed

This one's not an April Fool's joke. Google has finally presented their server design as well as their modular datacenter plans. It's quite a bit different than most large datacenter providers, and I think there are some really good lessons both on how to design a datacenter as well as the individual server units-- both in what to leave in and what to take out. The goal here was to help other companies with power saving initiatives, but we got a lot more information than just that.

I think the most important take-aways are:

Simplify your systems! The design cuts to the bare bones of what is needed. They're then able to expand with lots and lots of simple units. The designs look an awful lot like a motherboard on a tray that they were using in the beginning.

The nodes are really, truly generic. They've gone through 5 generations of these simple systems, and it doesn't matter what they do. Each one is a compute unit with no differentiation.

Since Google has the ability to build their own systems really and truly to spec (including entirely custom motherboards) they can do away with unimportant bits to save cost and add costs where necessary (e.g. the motherboad does the 5v step-down instead of the power supply-- a few dollar feature that is worthwhile for their specific design as it saves on power efficiency in the PSU, saving more than a buck or two in the long run.)

While Google is rumored to be not interested in repairing servers (they were famously supposed to leave broken servers in place and not bother fixing them), the most failure-prone stuff is very easy to service.

Batteries on each unit vs. a large UPS is a brilliant move. These guys won't last long enough for battery aging to be a big deal, and even if it is, they're small, discrete, and easy as hell to service compared to any UPS battery. Saving space, money, weight, etc. on UPSes really helps.

The whole containerized, customized datacenter design is so radical, I'm not really sure I fully appreciate it yet. It's got all the basics of a hot aisle system, but fantastic density. I'm going to have to think about this one it's so radical.

Anyway-- very cool stuff Google.