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July 28, 2006

Where the Web happens

Most people don't think of it this way, but the Information Age is being built on an infrastructure as imposing as the factories and mills of yore. Think of all the things people have been using the Internet for - all the e-mails, blogs, photos, videogames, movies, TV shows.

None of those bits and bytes simply float off into the ether, magically arriving at their assigned destinations. Storing, processing, and moving them all is heavy, heavy lifting. And the work is performed by tens of millions of computers known as servers, all packed into data centers around the world.

The industry term for the vast rooms full of humming, blinking computers inside each of these complexes is "server farms," but "work camps" would be more accurate.

Consider that every time you conduct a Web search on one of Yahoo's sites, for example, you activate roughly 7,000 or more computers - and that doesn't count at least 15,000 others that support every query by constantly poking around the Net for updates. - Behold the server farm! Glorious temple of the Information Age! - FORTUNE

Also from the same story, this quote:
"I'm a woman who loves data centers. I love how you walk near a rack of servers and it's really hot, and how it's cool in other spots." (She's actually part of a lively sorority: As I traveled the country checking out data centers, I found a surprising number of women in charge...)

Heh. Me too! :-)

Cindy