PDG writes "Google has pending plans to take its data centers off-shore, literally. By moving their data centers to floating barges in international waters, they are able to save money on taxes and electricity (using wave based power) as well as reside their operations outside the jurisdiction of governments. There is mention of hurricane and other caveats, but I wonder how they plan to get a bandwidth pipe large enough and still be reliable. Seems like a chapter out of a Neal Stephenson novel." You might recall earlier discussions on the same subject.
It would serve as a good reminder to corporate interests, domestic and abroad, that they operate at the will of the citizens of countries that protect them. That is part of what those taxes are funding. Yarr, avast ye maties, plunder me some big iron and NAS!
While I think Google's intentions here are probably good in the "freedom of speech" department, I'd rather see them addressing the root cause preventing them from maintaining servers on shore. Taxes they can't fix, but we pride ourselves on being a "free country". What do they need us, as citizens, to do to protect their interests?
Personally, I don't think those situations would warrant the "shoot to kill" approach.
I do, however, firmly believe that we should bring back the days of loading shotgun shells with rock salt to drive away trespassing kids.
And I say this as a former trespassing kid who did once get a backside full of rock salt. Believe me, it taught me a great deal about respecting other peoples property.
You've got to use a little common sense here, dude.
I'm talking about people invading your home (or, in the spirit of the original conversation, your offshore datacenter) with guns and intent to steal or damage your property. Kids egging your house isn't comparable, why are you even introducing it into the conversation?
The question actually was: Is killing people to protect your servers considered "evil" ?
Nobody is in danger.
If someone goes to the trouble of going all the way out to sea with the intent of breaking into a multi-billion-dollar company's offshore datacenter to steal or damage property, they are obviously pretty damn serious and may very well not be worried about injuring or killing people that try to get in their way. Generally the assumption is that if someone wants to harm your stuff, they're the ones being unfair and if you have to assume the worst (within reason... so obviously not kids egging your house, but serious criminals, yes...) and protect yourself accordingly. I'm not big on violence but self defense is one of those things where you don't want to find out the hard way that you shouldn't have been so easy on the person trying to hurt you or your stuff! -Taylor
Yeah call the police who will arrive in 3 hours and you lose whatever it is the thief took. The police are inefficient at actually protecting people.
I don't think being civilized means letting anyone who's threatening you, take whatever they want. I think you have a right to defend yourself and your property. Even though I'd probably do exactly what you describe.
You either forgot the sarcasm tags, or showed very well what's wrong in the USA.
You are so right. People should just stand by as those who wish to break the law do whatever they choose cause it would be evil to try and stop them.
I really dislike nut jobs that think that if you play nice and give up all your power everyone else will play nice too.
Face a modern day pirate and see if the situation is ambiguous. They aren't gonna make you walk the plank. More likely they'll shoot a shoulder launched grenade up your ass if you try and stop them.
Google Android...a platform for "mobile phones" huh. The Dalvik virtual machine sounds kinda like Dalek to me. Coincidence? Or killer robot defense force that also doubles as WiFi hotspots?
I hear they're launching stuff into space now too.
Everyone laughs, but that doesn't change reality. Reality is that when you have a huge corporation with most of its assets tied up in advanced technology, then you have to pay to keep it protected.
If you move the technology off-shore to avoid taxes, then you lose the protection that those taxes provide. Both from criminals and from the police that are being paid by the taxes that your land-based operations incur. Does Google plan to hire Blackwater (the world's largest mercenary army) to keep people away from their floating data centers?
There is also the question of getting the money to build these floating structures. As I write on Monday morning Sept 15 2008, the banking structure of the USA is collapsing. The stock market is falling and several of the largest banks of the USA have declared bankruptcy. No banks means no capital for expansion. Granted this isn't such a big issue when Google has such a large stock value, but that stock value is mostly based on speculation and Google's price could fall as fast as it rose.
There is also the question of scale. One can claim that a huge data center could be powered by wave energy; it's another thing to actually do it. Especially when you are a public corporation and have to answer to entities that hold huge blocks of your stock.
Google is a company with an oversupply of young over-educated technological Grade-Point Angels (people whose most singular talent is to convince their teachers to give them high grades in order that the teachers will be able to reflect in their angel's glory). These people have a tendency to actually believe their fantasies, especially the fantasies that involve both ecology and advanced technology.
This factor has to be considered in all of their press releases and corporate projections.
You see, Neal was born in 2014, he was only allowed to come back in time if he wrote some 'science fiction' novels that would cover up the fact he was a time traveller by just making him look like he made some lucky guesses.
From the article it's clear that they want to patent the idea. I don't understand that. What's the use of a patent if somebody infringing it is also in international waters and not bounded to patent law?
MATEY!!! FINALLY ME MATES AND ME PARROT CAN HANDLE DE SEAS AND REALLY PIRATE SUM ME DIGITAL DATA!
I can't wait until they start burying pirated DVDs and stolen WoW cards in the islands on the coast of New England. Just imagine a bunch of digital pirates raiding an off-shore data center. Hilarious.
No, I haven't had my coffee this morning, not yet.)
This is a bad dupe at best. From what I heard was that Google was thinking of putting these in ports as mobile data centers. Putting them off shore would cause more problems than it would solve. 1. Power. Wave power? Not with a barge. You might get a small part of you power from waves but not a lot. 2. Bandwidth. Fiber is fast everything else is slow. Running a fiber line out to a barge is iffy at best. 3. Weather. Now if you could put one on say an offshore drilling rig that might work. If you used stranded natural gas for power and sea water for cooling it might make a little sense.
Generally agreed, but what's iffy about fiber to the barge? Undersea fiber is a well understood technology. You need a little bit of flex in the line for normal motion of the ship, but I doubt that's likely to be a problem.
It's an interesting idea and no mistake. I guess you could 'deal with' natural conditions, simply by ensuring your data barges are geographically distributed and 'DR capable'. I'm still unconvinced though - anything at sea gets significantly more expensive - it's not just the weather, as much as continuous strain that a salt water, constantly moving environment applies to something.
I suppose that could be offset against energy/cooling costs and ground rent, but... I'm pretty sure that in terms of square feet, a yacht costs more than an apartment.
...tomorrow space will become the next place to host their data centers, and then they'll start colonizing worlds and start being referred to as "the company"
[..] but I wonder how they plan to get a bandwidth pipe large enough and still be reliable.
I don't think a pipe on the bottom of the ocean is your biggest concern when you put hundreds of thousands of computers on a man made island, exposed to possible tsunamis and hurricanes.
And while we're at it, have they thought of the possibility of terrorist attacks? If they're outside any jurisdiction, they also have no military power to protect them from planes, boats, subs and whatnot.
I have visions of "Google-Stars" orbiting the earth, modelled after the Star Wars Death Stars. These will agther and beam the sum of Earth's knowledge. Plus they will be pollution-free running on abundant solar power above the clouds. Google will have their own private space fleet to service these. Google already leases NASA-Ames to run their private jets, and Sergey will be an experienced Cosmonaut in two years.
... By moving their data centers to floating barges in international waters...
... The company is considering deploying the supercomputers necessary to operate its internet search engines on barges anchored up to seven miles (11km) offshore...
Erm, considering that national boundaries extend 12 miles from the mainland, that's hardly international.
It would need its own defensive and offensive systems. Basically this floating data center is also a floating target. I could imagine a well placed "torpedo" accidently being discharged and watch the floating gold mine bubble its way down to the depths of the ocean
as 'outside government jurisdiction'. A ship HAS to be registered and carry the flag of SOME nation, and it will be subject to the laws of that country. So a ship is no more or less outside the law than if you built your data center in that country.
Supposing someone has a ship which is NOT registered anywhere, then it is essentially 'fair game'. If say the US didn't like what you're doing they can just sail on up and do whatever they want with you. They could certainly board and seize any such vessel, after all who's going to object? In theory there might be some construction of maritime law that provides some protections, but without a government capable of objecting you're basically SOL.
So, there would be no consideration on Google's part of evasion of law. Possibly a way to choose a regulatory regime you like, but that's about it. Plus remember any large corporation is pretty much held hostage to its investors, insurance requirements, financing, and ultimately to whatever nations it has substantial business interests in.
A ship HAS to be registered and carry the flag of SOME nation, and it will be subject to the laws of that country. So a ship is no more or less outside the law than if you built your data center in that country.
That's true, but just as countries offering flags of convenience (Liberia, Cambodia) are happy to do away with other hassles shipowners don't like (taxes, safety regulations, inspections) I'm sure they'd be willing to accommodate Google's needs in the very unlikely event that this happens.
Nonsense. Google has a patent application. Which means that someone, somewhere, inside Google had this nifty idea, and a patent search thought it might be original. In corporations these days, the standing instructions are that if an idea is patentable, patent it - even if it is stupid or appears unworkable. This idea may be no more than bullshit round the water cooler.
Corporations want to build up a big patent portfolio. Financial types see that as good, which ups the stock price. And they want lots of patents in their pocket for when you get to a patent shoot-out (or to be so dangerous that one is pre-empted. The idea is that when someone accuses you of infringing a patent, you dump a huge pile of patents on the table and say "I bet you're infringing one of these".
So this article is a massive hype from a straw in the wind. Google is always thinking about datacentres, and this is a patent on an original, if not vary practical, thought.
They only have to go 12 miles, line of site. So say they go 20 for good measure. There are plenty of very high bandwidt solutions for that. Or they can run fiber. Of course whatever country their trunk lies in might have more than a wee bit of leverage with regard to how they conduct business and to whom taxes are paid.
Follow the law is neither good or evil. It's being lawful, which is the opposite of chaotic. That being said, as long as you're not a paladin, you don't have to worry about laws that aren't good.
In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announces a multi-billion dollar investment in a fleet of submarines.
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Insightful)
Microsoft CEO Steve Ballmer announces a multi-billion dollar investment in a fleet of submarines.
You kid, but wait till Google has some shit that China, Iran, or even the US doesn't like. Or Greenpeace or some other aggressive group doesn't like.
Accidents do happen at sea!
Parent
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Interesting)
It would serve as a good reminder to corporate interests, domestic and abroad, that they operate at the will of the citizens of countries that protect them. That is part of what those taxes are funding. Yarr, avast ye maties, plunder me some big iron and NAS!
While I think Google's intentions here are probably good in the "freedom of speech" department, I'd rather see them addressing the root cause preventing them from maintaining servers on shore. Taxes they can't fix, but we pride ourselves on being a "free country". What do they need us, as citizens, to do to protect their interests?
Parent
Google & guns (Score:5, Insightful)
So will Google have to have armed guards to shoot pirates? Is killing people to protect your servers considered "evil" ?
Parent
Re:Google & guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Shooting people who obviously intend harm to you or your property is not a morally ambiguous situation: you shoot to kill.
If it's your employer's property and you job is to protect it, you do the same.
Parent
Re:Google & guns (Score:5, Insightful)
Lol wut?
What is morally ambiguous about shooting people who are threatening to shoot you?
Not as some kind of bizarre Iraq war metaphor, I mean if someone breaks into your house, or your place of employment, and threatens you with a gun.
You also have a gun, so you shoot them. This is not a difficult moral dilemma.
Parent
Re:Google & guns (Score:4, Insightful)
You missed the "or your property" bit.
Would you really shoot to kill some kids that are egging your house on halloween? What about stealing apples from your backyard?
Parent
Re:Google & guns (Score:4, Interesting)
Personally, I don't think those situations would warrant the "shoot to kill" approach.
I do, however, firmly believe that we should bring back the days of loading shotgun shells with rock salt to drive away trespassing kids.
And I say this as a former trespassing kid who did once get a backside full of rock salt. Believe me, it taught me a great deal about respecting other peoples property.
Parent
Re:Google & guns (Score:5, Insightful)
You've got to use a little common sense here, dude.
I'm talking about people invading your home (or, in the spirit of the original conversation, your offshore datacenter) with guns and intent to steal or damage your property. Kids egging your house isn't comparable, why are you even introducing it into the conversation?
Parent
Re:Google & guns (Score:4, Insightful)
The question actually was: Is killing people to protect your servers considered "evil" ?
Nobody is in danger.
If someone goes to the trouble of going all the way out to sea with the intent of breaking into a multi-billion-dollar company's offshore datacenter to steal or damage property, they are obviously pretty damn serious and may very well not be worried about injuring or killing people that try to get in their way. Generally the assumption is that if someone wants to harm your stuff, they're the ones being unfair and if you have to assume the worst (within reason... so obviously not kids egging your house, but serious criminals, yes...) and protect yourself accordingly. I'm not big on violence but self defense is one of those things where you don't want to find out the hard way that you shouldn't have been so easy on the person trying to hurt you or your stuff!
-Taylor
Parent
Re:Google & guns (Score:4, Insightful)
Yeah call the police who will arrive in 3 hours and you lose whatever it is the thief took. The police are inefficient at actually protecting people.
I don't think being civilized means letting anyone who's threatening you, take whatever they want. I think you have a right to defend yourself and your property. Even though I'd probably do exactly what you describe.
Parent
Re:Google & guns (Score:4, Insightful)
You either forgot the sarcasm tags, or showed very well what's wrong in the USA.
You are so right. People should just stand by as those who wish to break the law do whatever they choose cause it would be evil to try and stop them. I really dislike nut jobs that think that if you play nice and give up all your power everyone else will play nice too.
Parent
Re:Google & guns (Score:5, Insightful)
Face a modern day pirate and see if the situation is ambiguous. They aren't gonna make you walk the plank. More likely they'll shoot a shoulder launched grenade up your ass if you try and stop them.
Parent
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Ha! And you think Google isn't prepared for that?
Google Android...a platform for "mobile phones" huh.
The Dalvik virtual machine sounds kinda like Dalek to me. Coincidence? Or killer robot defense force that also doubles as WiFi hotspots?
I hear they're launching stuff into space now too.
Parent
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Re:In other news... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
Hi Tech needs protection (Score:5, Interesting)
Everyone laughs, but that doesn't change reality. Reality is that when you have a huge corporation with most of its assets tied up in advanced technology, then you have to pay to keep it protected.
If you move the technology off-shore to avoid taxes, then you lose the protection that those taxes provide. Both from criminals and from the police that are being paid by the taxes that your land-based operations incur. Does Google plan to hire Blackwater (the world's largest mercenary army) to keep people away from their floating data centers?
There is also the question of getting the money to build these floating structures. As I write on Monday morning Sept 15 2008, the banking structure of the USA is collapsing. The stock market is falling and several of the largest banks of the USA have declared bankruptcy. No banks means no capital for expansion. Granted this isn't such a big issue when Google has such a large stock value, but that stock value is mostly based on speculation and Google's price could fall as fast as it rose.
There is also the question of scale. One can claim that a huge data center could be powered by wave energy; it's another thing to actually do it. Especially when you are a public corporation and have to answer to entities that hold huge blocks of your stock.
Google is a company with an oversupply of young over-educated technological Grade-Point Angels (people whose most singular talent is to convince their teachers to give them high grades in order that the teachers will be able to reflect in their angel's glory). These people have a tendency to actually believe their fantasies, especially the fantasies that involve both ecology and advanced technology.
This factor has to be considered in all of their press releases and corporate projections.
Parent
That's because... (Score:5, Funny)
You see, Neal was born in 2014, he was only allowed to come back in time if he wrote some 'science fiction' novels that would cover up the fact he was a time traveller by just making him look like he made some lucky guesses.
Re:That's because... (Score:5, Funny)
Parent
bandwidth (Score:5, Funny)
Google satellites of course!
Re:bandwidth (Score:5, Funny)
Never underestimate the bandwidth of a rubber dinghy loaded to capacity with USB thumb drives.
Parent
Re:bandwidth (Score:5, Funny)
its the latency that kills you
Parent
Re:bandwidth (Score:4, Funny)
Google satellites of course!
Shouldn't that be Google Skynet?
Parent
Re:bandwidth (Score:5, Funny)
Latency can be reduced significantly if they begin sending your results a mere moment before you submit your search.
This feature requires you to be signed in I think.
Parent
One word... (Score:4, Interesting)
Pirates.
I hope Google is willing to defend those datacenters by themselves in international waters... it would be a shame if they were sunk !
Re:One word... (Score:5, Funny)
Don't worry. Each barge has a team of ninjas assigned to it to fight off pirates.
Parent
patent!? (Score:5, Funny)
From the article it's clear that they want to patent the idea.
I don't understand that. What's the use of a patent if somebody infringing it is also in international waters and not bounded to patent law?
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
All disputes to be settled by broadsides should parlay fail.
HARRRRRR (Score:3, Funny)
I can't wait until they start burying pirated DVDs and stolen WoW cards in the islands on the coast of New England. Just imagine a bunch of digital pirates raiding an off-shore data center. Hilarious.
No, I haven't had my coffee this morning, not yet.)
Umm no they are not. (Score:5, Interesting)
This is a bad dupe at best.
From what I heard was that Google was thinking of putting these in ports as mobile data centers.
Putting them off shore would cause more problems than it would solve.
1. Power. Wave power? Not with a barge. You might get a small part of you power from waves but not a lot.
2. Bandwidth. Fiber is fast everything else is slow. Running a fiber line out to a barge is iffy at best.
3. Weather.
Now if you could put one on say an offshore drilling rig that might work. If you used stranded natural gas for power and sea water for cooling it might make a little sense.
wave power (Score:5, Interesting)
can be done with rolling seas..
You send something to the sea floor and secure it
the raising of the whole ship based on wave motion can drive a flywheel..... the displacement of the ship generates a LOT of power....
Parent
Re: (Score:3, Interesting)
Interesting concept (Score:3, Insightful)
I suppose that could be offset against energy/cooling costs and ground rent, but ... I'm pretty sure that in terms of square feet, a yacht costs more than an apartment.
Sounds like a chapter out of Slashdot... (Score:4, Informative)
today the oceans... (Score:3, Interesting)
What a summary (Score:4, Insightful)
[..] but I wonder how they plan to get a bandwidth pipe large enough and still be reliable.
I don't think a pipe on the bottom of the ocean is your biggest concern when you put hundreds of thousands of computers on a man made island, exposed to possible tsunamis and hurricanes.
And while we're at it, have they thought of the possibility of terrorist attacks? If they're outside any jurisdiction, they also have no military power to protect them from planes, boats, subs and whatnot.
Re: (Score:3, Funny)
Those terrists will use Google maps to locate where it is and Google will just point them to wherever they like.
how about orbiting data satellites? (Score:3, Interesting)
International Waters?!? (Score:5, Informative)
Erm, considering that national boundaries extend 12 miles from the mainland, that's hardly international.
Google Navy (Score:3, Insightful)
There is no such thing (Score:5, Informative)
as 'outside government jurisdiction'. A ship HAS to be registered and carry the flag of SOME nation, and it will be subject to the laws of that country. So a ship is no more or less outside the law than if you built your data center in that country.
Supposing someone has a ship which is NOT registered anywhere, then it is essentially 'fair game'. If say the US didn't like what you're doing they can just sail on up and do whatever they want with you. They could certainly board and seize any such vessel, after all who's going to object? In theory there might be some construction of maritime law that provides some protections, but without a government capable of objecting you're basically SOL.
So, there would be no consideration on Google's part of evasion of law. Possibly a way to choose a regulatory regime you like, but that's about it. Plus remember any large corporation is pretty much held hostage to its investors, insurance requirements, financing, and ultimately to whatever nations it has substantial business interests in.
Re: (Score:3, Insightful)
That's true, but just as countries offering flags of convenience (Liberia, Cambodia) are happy to do away with other hassles shipowners don't like (taxes, safety regulations, inspections) I'm sure they'd be willing to accommodate Google's needs in the very unlikely event that this happens.
Re-Run the "Pirate" Poll (Score:3, Funny)
Massive overstatement (Score:5, Insightful)
Google has pending plans...
Nonsense. Google has a patent application. Which means that someone, somewhere, inside Google had this nifty idea, and a patent search thought it might be original. In corporations these days, the standing instructions are that if an idea is patentable, patent it - even if it is stupid or appears unworkable. This idea may be no more than bullshit round the water cooler.
Corporations want to build up a big patent portfolio. Financial types see that as good, which ups the stock price. And they want lots of patents in their pocket for when you get to a patent shoot-out (or to be so dangerous that one is pre-empted. The idea is that when someone accuses you of infringing a patent, you dump a huge pile of patents on the table and say "I bet you're infringing one of these".
So this article is a massive hype from a straw in the wind. Google is always thinking about datacentres, and this is a patent on an original, if not vary practical, thought.
Bandwidt may be easier than suspected. (Score:4, Informative)
They only have to go 12 miles, line of site. So say they go 20 for good measure. There are plenty of very high bandwidt solutions for that. Or they can run fiber. Of course whatever country their trunk lies in might have more than a wee bit of leverage with regard to how they conduct business and to whom taxes are paid.
Good news, bad news (Score:5, Interesting)
The bad news: They use the UK spelling ("data centre") in the link, and don't notice the 404s.
Worse news: The Times story get Slashdotted, and all those readers can't find your site.
Live and learn. Now we own datacentreknowledge.com as well. If anyone was actually looking, our link is below.
Its been done before (Score:4, Funny)
Why doesn't Google just buy Sealand?
http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Principality_of_Sealand [wikipedia.org]
Re:I'm curious (Score:5, Funny)
if they have any plans to deal with corrosive salts from the oceans?
They're breeding a dolphin/deer hybrid to swim around the facility and lick off the salt.
Parent
Re:Remember that Total Information Awareness plan? (Score:5, Funny)
Follow the law is neither good or evil. It's being lawful, which is the opposite of chaotic. That being said, as long as you're not a paladin, you don't have to worry about laws that aren't good.
Parent
Re:Company navy? Examples? (Score:5, Interesting)
East India Company [wikipedia.org]
Parent