By Allan Maurer
LENIOR, NC – In today’s economy more than ever, people are inclined to research any type of purchase or activity on the Internet before spending scarce cash, says Thomas Jacobik, operations manager of Google’s new $600 million Lenior, NC datacenter. “We’re seeing more and more people going to the Internet to make decisions,” he says. For Google, that means infrastructure has to keep up with exponential growth in Internet use.
Jacobik will participate on the Internet infrastructure panel at the upcoming Internet Summit in Chapel Hill sponsored by TechJournal South, the NC Council for Entrepreneurial Development, and Southern Capitol Ventures Nov. 19 (see: http://www.internetsummitevent.com for more information or to register. Fewer than 100 seats remain available and a sell-out is expected).
It’s not just the economy driving more people to use the Internet more often, Jabcobik notes.
“We’re also going to more and more compact and personal computing devices,” he says. “New netbooks designed for Web search and browsing are more compact and portable. Cell phones now have computing devices. Local governments and communities are embracing free or fee based WiFi.”
The recent Federal Communications Commission decision to open up so-called broadcast “white space” for broadband Internet service—something Google founders supported vigorously—will help make better and faster Internet connections available.
“It will also expand broadband to areas where it’s not otherwise available,” says Jacobik. “We’ll get better coverage at lower cost.”
All of that means that Google strives to keep its infrastructure in shape to handle expanding demand for its services.
“So,” Jacobik says, “we look at ways to reduce and compact and manage Internet data. One of the biggest challenges is how to archive or clean up infrastructure that’s no longer in use and sitting idle.”
Google is also involved in seeking the most energy efficient and environmentally friendly ways to operate. “Green is a huge focus at all our sites,” says Jacobik. “We’re always looking for ways to reduce our carbon footprint. It’s one of the key responsibilities for managers running our opterations.
“We look at where we can have key wins depending on location, different types of cooling technologies (all those servers generate lots of heat) and tyes of energy. We’re looking to the day when our renewable energy costs less than regular energy today, to when green is cheaper than coal.”
He points out that Google “has continued to look at our energy utilization and server efficiency to consistently get our power needs to one of the lowest in the industry. That not only helps us minimize our use, but sets an example for the rest of the industry to follow.”
While Google is often mum about the number of servers in a facility and how it manages them, since it considers that a business advantage, it doesn’t treat its efforts toward green tech that way. “We publish our power effectiveness ratings across our data centers and show what we’re doing and how we’re doing it. We’re committed to keeping that public.
In addition, “We go out to the community and make it a two-way conversation,” says Jacobik, who is already involved with the Lenior community that way.
“We talk to other businesses about the things we’ve learned and participate on green energy commissions and community forums. We helped start a green energy commission in Caldwell County (NC).
“We just announced a partnership with Caldwell Community College to develop a greenhouse that will recoup gasses of the landfill. And we’re donating energy credits to help develop a greenhouse to develop better ways of managing agriculture, which is key in this community.
“It’s part of our commitment ot sustainable computing,” he says. “What we’re doing is not something we’ll keep close held, because it improves the environment and the communities around us.”
On the Web: www.google.com/corporate/datacenter
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