Google Throws Open Doors to Its Top-Secret Data Center | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com

Google Throws Open Doors to Its Top-Secret Data Center | Wired Enterprise | Wired.com: Urs H�lzle had never stepped into a data center before he was hired by Sergey Brin and Larry Page. A hirsute, soft-spoken Swiss, H�lzle was on leave as a computer science professor at UC Santa Barbara in February 1999 when his new employers took him to the Exodus server facility in Santa Clara. Exodus was a colocation site, or colo, where multiple companies rent floor space. Google’s “cage” sat next to servers from eBay and other blue-chip Internet companies. But the search company’s array was the most densely packed and chaotic. Brin and Page were looking to upgrade the system, which often took a full 3.5 seconds to deliver search results and tended to crash on Mondays. They brought H�lzle on to help drive the effort.