I retired from personal blogging in July 2008.
But you can find me over at http://blog.xero.com.
Posted by Rod in Communications, Google at 11:23 am on Saturday, 12 April 2008
Google data center locations …
If I was laying a new fibre link from NZ to Australia I know who’d I’d be talking to. Chuck in a bit of power and DC should be on Helens Jet to Moffat Field now.


umm ….. Africa?
seriously though play up the energy advantages of a cooler climate - put it way south - (in fact, put it in Dunedin use the waste heat to feed into the Hospital steam plant)
(actually your map has the southern hemisphere 1/2 the size of the Northern - there’s probably more missing opportunity than you think)
I would’ve preferred if that new cable was coming into Kapiti or Nelson. But I guess they figure everyone is already set up to use SXC in Auckland it’s easier to just feed in extra capacity and competition there.
I’d love to see a google cluster here, but i doubt it makes sense. We’ve limited international pipes, the new one we’re getting provides limited diversity. We’ve a very small domestic market, and even including Australia it’s tiny. Internet topography wise we’re fare away from their customers. A *huge* part of Google’s traffic these days is youtube (etc.).
So look at that map, sure they’d like cheap power, cooling, etc. but what is most important is being close to their customers, and being at the centre of the Internet. NZ don’t fit in.
Hmm. Try matching it against this fibre map (courtesy of The Guardian).
I would say there would be more room for Google cluster growth in Asia than anywhere else. Is NZ really that bad connectivity wise? I thought we had submarine cables before the SX? There are at least two “Cable Bay”s in NZ, although I presume those cables are well dead.
A cable from NZ to South America would be nice in terms of global redundancy (see how they all, bar one, come *down* from North America) but there would be no traffic.
@erentz: It is interesting that all our international connectivity seems to be concentrated in Auckland. Makes sense in traffic and geography terms, but lord help us if it sinks :-( I guess it is an extra ~1000K of fibre to get to Christchurch when coming from the North.
“(actually your map has the southern hemisphere 1/2 the size of the Northern - there’s probably more missing opportunity than you think)”
The map is correct, it’s just missing antarctica, not much opportunity there for Google…
I think something like only 10% of the worlds population live in the Southern Hemisphere. We really are a long long way from the big markets…
actually Antartica is a large untapped cooling resource … perfect place for a bunch of machines (expect there’s no power ….).
That map’s probably better than most northernhemispherocentric ones - vaguely equal area (my test is to compare NZ with the west coast of the US - are they about the same size)
seriously though I’d love something that doesn’t go thru Auckland - I often see 100mS plus latency to there - a killer as I work in the US and live in Dunedin - sadly I doubt sending stuff thru Oz would be much better
If Kordia take the new cable out of somewhere like Hokitika, it makes sense. Otherwise not.