We all know Google builds their own server hardware. From what Google has learned building their own servers, could they get in the server business selling Google appliances for those who want to own the infrastructure and not go to the cloud.
Why would I think this could happen because I took a look at Google's platform jobs and saw 2 EMC (electromagnetic compliance) job openings which would typically be done for regulatory approvals like EN, FCC, VCCI, ETSI, CISPR, Telcordia etc
Here is the list of Google job openings in the platform group. The EMC jobs are #2 and #3.
Google Mountain View – Platforms
- Data Center Technician - Mountain View
- EMC Design Engineer - Mountain View
- EMC Test Engineer - Mountain View
- Hardware Engineer - Mountain View
- Hardware Test and Qualification Engineer - Mountain View
- Hardware Testing Engineer - Mountain View
- Hardware, Computer-Aided Design / Printed Circuit Board (CAD/PCB) Designer - Mountain View
- Lead Power Engineer, Platforms Engineering - Mountain View
- Linux System Administrator - Mountain View
- Machinist - Mountain View
- Manufacturing Program Manager - Mountain View
- Mechanical Engineer - Mountain View
- Mechanical Engineer, System Architect - Mountain View
- Mechanical/Systems Engineer - Mountain View
- Networking Test Engineer - Mountain View
- Platforms Build and Release Engineer - Mountain View
- Platforms Project Manager - Mountain View
- Platforms Server Test Lead Manager - Mountain View
- Platforms Storage Software Engineer - Mountain View
- Platforms Test Development Engineer - Mountain View
- Power Engineer, Platforms Engineering - Mountain View
- Software Engineer, Embedded Systems Test and Qualification - Mountain View
- Technical Lead/Manager, Networking Software Testing - Mountain View
If Google gets into the Mobile, and Tablet business. Why not Server?
If anyone could turn the Server industry upside down Google could.
Or could Google change the hosting business by renting Google Servers in Google hosted data centers. That is one way to get around security and regulatory issues with current cloud offerings.
When I look at the list of jobs, sure does like a hardware manufacturing team. And, this is just the open positions.
Could be that they've decided doing their own EMC compliance testing is cheaper than getting it done by the hardware vendors since they are doing one-off certifications for Google specific configs.
Posted by: Nik Simpson | Jan 28, 2011 at 01:05 PM
I don't think Google has bothered with EMC compliance in the past as their custom motherboards were not sold to others. Given it was for their own consumption, they could bypass the regulatory issues meant for those who sell IT equipment. Getting EMC compliance I would interpret means Google intends to sell Google labeled server HW.
When you look at the way the Google motherboards have been installed in a rack, there is no nameplate that you would normally put a certification certificate.
Posted by: Dave Ohara | Jan 28, 2011 at 01:14 PM
Dave, could it be that they are now finding that they've been to aggressive on not meeting the EMC requirements of a mass market server and that putting tens of thousands of servers in a data center is causing them problems.
That said, the list of jobs certainly looks like a hardware design team, however they could simply plan on doing hardware designs for their own data centers with manufacturing outsourced. Makes sense since from what I gather Google's server designs are unique to their requirements. It's not that unusual, you've just posted about a group within Microsoft that's full of hardware engineers. I think it's a recognition that the server hardware vendors aren't building the best products for the type of compute infrastructures that Microsoft and Google are building. The best way to get those products is to have a design team that works closely with the data center infrastructure and app-dev teams to design a server that delivers the best bang for the buck (or the watt), then go to pac-rim manufacturers and say "how much would you charge if I ordered 20,000 (or 50K or whatever) of these a month from you?"
Posted by: Nik Simpson | Jan 28, 2011 at 01:20 PM
Nik - good points. I used to run hardware projects at Apple and the EMC issues could definitely cause performance issues that influence other machines. But, Google could solve the EMC issues and not bother with certification.
Another reason Google could be doing custom server hardware is they could create custom ASICs for various algorithms. their volumes are large enough and their algorithms mature enough that they could in theory create ASICs that are higher performing than running the algorithms in SW. There have been a variety of ASIC positions open at Google, and custom ASICs have been developed for network gear that Google also has manufactured.
google's hardware team has server, network, and storage. I checked their job postings a year ago, and it looks like google is hiring more this year.
Posted by: Dave Ohara | Jan 28, 2011 at 01:30 PM
Thanks for this post. I couldn’t make it and this post has been useful.
Posted by: John Papers | Feb 02, 2011 at 03:28 AM