My daughter (who is now 11), as most kids today, are very familiar with technology and they still say the darn-est things. When she was 3, she came into my office and commented that I had a lot of “polluters”. How right she was!
The latest example occurred when I was on a recent business trip to California. When I called one night,
I mentioned that I had just been to Google, to which she replied “I thought you were in California?”.
When I said Google IS in California, she said “I thought it was on the Internet”.
I have told this story a few times and people seem to relate to it especially as an example of the different perspectives on cloud computing. To most readers of this blog, the idea that someone actually had to build and operate what runs Google is fairly obvious. But to a “consumer” of services (the term can refer to businesses consuming services as well), the idea of the cloud as a magical place where you don’t have to worry about how it works, just that it works, makes just as much sense.
Funny, she didn’t have that reaction when I said I had been at Microsoft or IBM…
2 responses so far ↓
1 Mike West // Jul 28, 2009 at 3:12 pm
Google is in the cloud and the cloud is everywhere…you were just at Google HQ, a common mistake that many people make.
from the Google Data Center FAQ:
Where are Google’s data centers located?
Google has disclosed the sites of four new facilities announced in 2007, but many of its older data center locations remain under wraps. Much of Google’s data center equipment is housed in the company’s own facilities, but it also continues to lease space in a number of third-party facilities. Much of its third-party data center space is focused around peering centers in major connectivity hubs. Here’s our best information about where Google is operating data centers, building new ones, or maintaining equipment for network peering. Facilities we believe to be major data centers are bold-faced.
UNITED STATES
Mountain View, Calif.
Pleasanton, Calif.
San Jose, Calif.
Los Angeles, Calif.
Palo Alto, Calif.
Seattle
Portland, Oregon
The Dalles, Oregon
Chicago
Atlanta, Ga. (two sites)
Reston, Virginia
Ashburn, Va.
Virginia Beach, Virginia
Houston, Texas
Miami, Fla.
Lenoir, North Carolina
Goose Creek, South Carolina
Pryor, Oklahoma (Under construction, delayed)
Council Bluffs, Iowa (Under construction)
International sites after the jump …
INTERNATIONAL
Toronto, Canada
Berlin, Germany
Frankfurt, Germany
Munich, Germany
Zurich, Switzerland
Groningen, Netherlands
Mons, Belgium
Eemshaven, Netherlands
Paris
London
Dublin, Ireland
Milan, Italy
Moscow, Russia
Sao Paolo, Brazil
Tokyo
Hong Kong
Beijing
Most of the international locations likely are for network peering or to house servers supporting the more than 30 country-specific versions of the Google search engine.
2 Whit Andrews // Jul 29, 2009 at 5:14 pm
My son assumed I worked FOR Google.
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