...that Google builds all their servers from "off the shelf" parts? All their servers are made up from regular CPUs, RAM, motherboards and all that which we regular geeks got in our desktops.
...that Google's servers are running Linux? Albeit they are using their own filesystem (Google File System, or gfs), which together with MapReduce, is responsible for handling all the distributed computing needs they have. As I understood it, writing a piece of software means you don't have to care about the whole distributed computing part at all, the file system handles it for you!
...that Google employees (at the engineering department, at least) may use 20% of their *paid time* to toy around and do pretty much anything they want as long as it at least slightly, in some way, is connected to what they do? During this time they can also get to use the enormous data repository that's at hand. Most of the current "spin offs", such as GMail, is the result of such toying around.
...that a normal Google search query will involve 1000+ physical machines but yet get your answer back to you in 0.25 seconds? Pretty amazing, isn't it?
Had a 2h lecture earlier today with a guy from Google Engineering/Europe talking about all sorts of stuff. Interesting stuff. Hope you enjoyed reading some of this trivia I picked up there. :) |
