Google’s First Production Server

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...with the hair pulled back, revealing a rack of cheap networked PCs, circa 1999.

Each level has a couple of PC boards slammed in there, partially overlapping. This approach reflects a presumption of rapid obsolescence of cheap hardware, which would not need to be repaired. Several of the PCs never worked, and the system design optimized around multiple computer failures.

Larry and Sergey told me long ago that the beta system used Duplo blocks for the chassis because generic brand plastic blocks were not rigid enough.

We held an event at the Computer History Museum yesterday, and I noticed this new item in the collection. It pre-dates the Google Master Plan.

Charlie Evatt, sean dreilinger, gdsanders, 老管's photo, and 261 other people added this photo to their favorites.

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  1. Shapeways: 23 months ago | reply

    Sweet, love that they used Duplo bricks to hold it together...

  2. tjames221 22 months ago | reply

    That is incredible! It's amazing how far we've come since then. I get the same feeling when I look at an Apple II-c. Can I use this photo in my post Social Media Club? Thanks!

  3. AlexTurton 18 months ago | reply

    shot. well done

  4. jurvetson 4 months ago | reply

    Some interesting historical detail from amitp about the racks:

    The "hh" rack was in the lobby of B42 for many years, and I guess it's now gone nomadic. The public can see its cousin, the "jj" rack, at The Computer History Museum.

    This is the "hh" rack [below], with machines hh1 through hh80. Originally they were in order, with hh1–4 on the top rack and hh77–80 on the bottom rack. However, looking at the photo, they've been shuffled a bit. Not sure why.
    "hh" was an early generation Google rack. Originally there was a1–a25 and c1–c4, and then they went through the alphabet, then started using double letters. Back then, machines were individually assigned to projects. I had been assigned hh4, and it treated me well — it was much better behaved than the other machines I had been assigned. They ran out of double letters and switched to two letters, then four (using the datacenter for two of them). As the number of machines grew, Google built systems to automate machine allocation and deallocation, so Googlers no longer grow attached to specific machines as I did to hh4.

    SciFoo 2012

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