Google is YouTube, Google search, Maps, Photos, G Suite, Google Cloud platform and much more… These apps generate data and demand connectivity at all times at the fingertips of billions of people. But does this traffic gets managed efficiently and cost-effectively?
At the end of June 2018, the Google Global Cache nodes at AMS-IX Caribbean were upgraded from 8x1G to 3x10G. The capacity upgrade ensures that more traffic can be cached locally: which will facilitate further growth of the exchange, a pleasant end user experience and sharp network performance.
We are now standing next to one of the Google Global Caches in the E-Commerce Park Datacenter at Willemstad, Curaçao, which have been upgraded here at AMS-IX Caribbean. These are the so-called Google Global Caches (or GCC) which represent Google’s infrastructure closest to end-users. This is a very important part of the infrastructure of Google’s overall service as it represents the most popular and high in-demand data and services. Other data is stored a bit further away in one of the 15+ core data centres or in one of the 100+ interconnection facilities around the world.
When we first started here in 2008, the infrastructure was primarily designed to accommodate 100Mbit and the occasional 1G ports. Nowadays, we see that the market has developed into 1G being the minimum and multiple 10G ports becoming more and more common. The upgrade of the Google Global Caches to 3x10G at AMS-IX Caribbean fits seamlessly into this trend.
Google has more or less three layers of networking infrastructure: The heart, which are around 15 core data centres which represent the core of Google content and services. The edge, which connect the data centers to the rest of the internet via peering at 100+ interconnection facilities around the world. And last but not least, the edge nodes or Google Global Caches (or GCC) which represent Google’s infrastructure closest to end-users.