
Google Networking Device Appears in Small-Town Iowa - mkuhn
http://www.wired.com/wiredenterprise/2012/09/pluto-switch/all/
======
ChuckMcM
Networks are a fundamental part of the Google infrastructure. Ask yourself a
couple of questions and then you can answer the questions about Googles
motivations.

1) Is there any switch that does only what you want? Have any of the features
you didn't need interfered with your uptime?

2) In a 48 port high performance switch which is more expensive? The switch or
the cables? Why?

So if you 'do the math' the obvious answer sort of pops out.

Disclaimer: I worked there and agreed not to discuss any platform technologies
until such time as either Google talked about them publicly or they were
disclosed by other means not related to me.

~~~
dholowiski
Is that agreement forever, or does it expire after x years? (or can you even
say?)

~~~
ChuckMcM
To be honest I don't know. I do know that Google has a tendency to brag about
things after they remove them from service so from a practical standpoint its
not 'forever' but when I get home I'll check the language.

------
scoopr
Heh, I'm completely baffled why it has Finnish text on it. From the blurrypic
I can make out "Laite on liitettävä suojamaadoituskoskettimella varustettuun
pistorasiaan", which basically means "Device must be connected to grounded
outlet"

~~~
itcmcgrath
Does Google have a data-center in Finland?

~~~
patdennis
<http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/locations/hamina/>

~~~
itcmcgrath
Early 2009. Date lines up with how old the ex-engineer thinks the device might
be (3ish years old). So perhaps the Finnish text is explained by this being a
piece of Hamina Data Center's original networking gear.

"Ex-Google engineer J.R. Rivers — who now runs a networking outfit called
Cumulus Networks — says this appears to be an older switch, something that has
been used for about three years or so"

~~~
goatforce5
A friend who used to do networking stuff for a global bank had good things to
say about Nokia networking gear.

So I guess there are good networking hardware engineers in Finland, and it's
not a stretch to imagine Google might have bought some of them up somewhere
along the way.

~~~
otoburb
Nokia has been hammered in the past couple of years and has shed[1] and will
be shedding more[2] jobs over the next several quarters. Google and other
technology companies have probably been circling Finland for a number of
months now trying to identify and intake the best talent they can find.

[1][http://www.bgr.com/2012/03/22/nokia-to-cut-1000-jobs-from-
fi...](http://www.bgr.com/2012/03/22/nokia-to-cut-1000-jobs-from-finnish-
phone-plant/)

[2][http://www.bgr.com/2012/06/14/nokia-layoffs-2012-vertu-
restr...](http://www.bgr.com/2012/06/14/nokia-layoffs-2012-vertu-
restructuring/)

------
itcmcgrath
I often hear about Google's custom hardware. Are there any other large tech
companies (who are not hardware companies) that build/design their own
hardware to run internally?

~~~
apaprocki
At Bloomberg, we design almost all of our branded hardware in-house, from the
terminals (monitors/keyboards)[1] to the B-UNIT authentication devices[2].
There are also other internal datacenter hardware projects.

[1]:
[http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u298/winstontj/Trading/Ha...](http://i171.photobucket.com/albums/u298/winstontj/Trading/Hardware/100_2826.jpg)
[2]:
[http://lh6.ggpht.com/_iHYDAo93tQY/S3m5Jd5nHOI/AAAAAAAAGY8/oB...](http://lh6.ggpht.com/_iHYDAo93tQY/S3m5Jd5nHOI/AAAAAAAAGY8/oBpYLgEbYrw/b_unit3.jpg)

~~~
jpdus
BTW, do you know, why Bloomberg switched from the old, more comfortable
B-Units (as pictured above) to the new black ones, which dont feature a full
fingerprint reader any more (instead you have to slide your finger over a
smaller sensor)? The old design was way more comfortable, faster and produced
less errors in my experience...

~~~
apaprocki
The quality of scan in the swipe sensors is actually better than the older
area sensors and they also cost less and take up less space on the circuit
board. Perhaps the enrollment scan you did was not as good as it could have
been and you should re-enroll to capture a better fingerprint.

------
incision
As I recall, Google has been producing switches [1] for some time now.

1: [http://gigaom.com/2007/11/18/google-making-its-own-10gig-
swi...](http://gigaom.com/2007/11/18/google-making-its-own-10gig-switches/)

------
wethesheeple
I love the "Who's online" section at the bottom of the "obscure" networking
forum.

About 5 members and over 11,000 guests. It doesn't seem very "obscure" at the
moment.

It's too bad PT Barnum is not alive today to see the thundering herds of the
world wide web.

------
ceautery
The Wireshark capture showing BOOTP was interesting. I don't live in the
networking world anymore, but I thought BOOTP had gone the way of Gopher by
now.

~~~
noselasd
That's just a peculiarity of wireshark, it displays both DHCP and BOOTP as
BOOTP in the oneline view. The packets are likely DHCP

------
niklas
This is a bit of a longshot. But I am looking for switch hardware that have
gigabit fiber and speaks OpenFlow for a FTTH project.

~~~
wmf
Find a BCM56534-based switch and put Indigo on it. Unfortunately my company
only makes 10G OpenFlow switches which is probably overkill for FTTH.

------
hastur
If the big Goo asks the forum admin to take down the thread, let me know, I've
made a copy.

