The Datacenter as a Computer
by Luiz André Barroso · first published 1900
20mentions
9recommended by
17HN commenters
2013–2026first – last mentioned
53% recommend47% neutral
Why HN recommends it
Google-authored introduction to warehouse-scale computing, covering datacenter hardware, infrastructure, and scale-driven design choices; useful background for datacenter and infrastructure work
Summarised by Claude from recommending comments
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That depends on what level of book, and what you want to learn from it. On "how real distributed systems are built", there isn't a really good book available in my opinion. I liked The Datacenter as a Computer, but it's scope is fairly narrow and is more focused on global infrastructure issues than software design issues. On the math behind distributed systems, Nancy Lynch's book Distributed Algorithms (http://www.amazon.com/Distributed-Algorithms-Kaufmann-Manage...)…
on “Distributed systems for fun and profit” ↗_The Datacenter as a Computer_ [1] is a free book written by Googlers that helps get your head around that scale. [1] http://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/abs/10.2200/S00516ED2V01Y2...
on “An update on container support on Google Cloud Platform” ↗…buying power than most. Good lord! [1] http://www.computer.org/csdl/mags/mi/2010/04/mmi2010040020-a... [2] http://www.nextplatform.com/2015/03/18/google-looks-ahead-to... Background, great book "The Datacenter as a Computer": http://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/abs/10.2200/S00516ED2V01Y2...
on “Google Said to Endorse Qualcomm's Fledgling Server-Chip Efforts” ↗Google is famous for publishing a lot of material every year. A couple of related publications you might be interested in: 1. The Datacenter as a computer: https://ai.google/research/pubs/pub41606 2. The SRE book: https://landing.google.com/sre/sre-book/toc/ A couple of dated presentations: 1. Jeff Dean on building software systems at Google (2010) at…
on “AWS Nitro System” ↗There’s a book: “The Datacenter as a Computer: Designing Warehouse-Scale Machines” (free to download). https://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/abs/10.2200/S00874ED3V01Y...
on “Google is investing $3.3B to build clean data centers in Europe” ↗In "The Datacenter as a Computer" there was an interesting diagram sketching a datacenter memory hierarchy latency and capacity and bandwidth to access RAM, SSD, and HDD in the same machine, the same rack, and a larger cluster. It's…
on “Latency Numbers Every Programmer Should Know (2012)” ↗His book "The Datacenter as a Computer: An Introduction to the Design of Warehouse-Scale Machines" was immensely valuable to me as I moved into datacenter management as a new-grad. RIP. https://research.google/pubs/pub41606/
on “Pioneer of Google's Data Centers Dies at 58” ↗They do publish some of that, or at least they used to. In particular "The Datacenter as a Computer" [0] was a very interesting read. [0] https://research.google/pubs/the-datacenter-as-a-computer-an...
on “How Meta trains large language models at scale” ↗…for inventing the search technology that half the planet now depends on? I don't know what category to put that one in, but there's some important results in lightspeed-limited communications in "The Datacenter as a Computer" that would be worth extending the Physics category for.
on “US weighs Google break-up in landmark antitrust case” ↗Two others listed here: https://sre.google/books/, "Building Secure & Reliable Systems" and "The Site Reliability Workbook". I would also mention "The Datacenter as a Computer: designing warehouse-scale machines". https://research.google/pubs/the-datacenter-as-a-computer-de...
on “10 Years of the SRE book: Announcing the second edition” ↗…below. The same book quotes overall inefficiencies from power line to the CPU from as low as 48% for the crappy-PSU + UPS + converters to up to 92% for the Google AC/DC+integrated PSU design. E.g. "The Datacenter as a Computer An Introduction to the Design of Warehouse-Scale Machines, Second Edition, Luiz André, Barroso Jimmy, Clidaras Urs Hölzle" page 52 (PDF page 70) figure 4.2 quotes AC/DC supplies with 79% at worst, but…
on “San Francisco’s Secret DC Grid” ↗I am looking for good technical books about data centers Cloudscale / emerging tech / etc I stumbled across "The Datacenter as a Computer" 2nd edition from 2013. Anything else/new worth reading?
on “Books about Data Centers?” ↗…circulation by around that time, but details are still mostly secret. Definite cross-pollination of ideas between different groups at that time, even if most stuff is under NDA ;) Google also publishes "Datacenter as a Computer". Cambrian explosion of container-based schedulers follows, as people liberate themselves from one-app-per-instance paradigm. (personal aside: I suspect half of it is due to finding Docker horrible in…
on “Kubernetes: The Documentary” ↗…probably many more I can't recall). It's about efficient use of multiple machines, or as Google & ex-Google employees called it in a book released at similar time as Heroku went from private beta to GA, "Datacenter as a Computer". 12 factors were important, but they just as well can apply to noncontainerised software (arguably, they are just as valid in the ~2000 world of EJB java servers, except replace "environment variables"…
on “Kubernetes: The Documentary” ↗As a side note, the second edition of "Datacenter as a Computer" was recently released: http://www.morganclaypool.com/doi/abs/10.2200/S00516ED2V01Y2...
on “Distributed systems for fun and profit” ↗