MASSIVE scale of servers

[g***@cyberdude.com]

...I'm wondering, when I type in Google.com, and when I actually DO a search, how the page shows up? ie. Google, the search engine, is made up of probably MILLIONS of servers, (distributed geographically too, over many locations) so - how does it load balance between all of them? What is it that actually *answers* the request, AT THAT SCALE (ie. serving all the WORLD's queries), and how does it hand it off to a particular server? How does it FIND a free one (how does it know which one is a good one to hand it off to?), and how does it make sure that NONE of those surfers gets a hang on the "Connecting to google.com...." message in the browser?

Thanks.

[Grant Taylor]

Post by g***@cyberdude.com
...I'm wondering, when I type in Google.com, and when I actually DO a
search, how the page shows up? ie. Google, the search engine, is made
up of probably MILLIONS of servers, (distributed geographically too,
over many locations) so - how does it load balance between all of
them? What is it that actually *answers* the request, AT THAT SCALE
(ie. serving all the WORLD's queries), and how does it hand it off to
a particular server? How does it FIND a free one (how does it know
which one is a good one to hand it off to?), and how does it make
sure that NONE of those surfers gets a hang on the "Connecting to
google.com...." message in the browser?

There is a LOT of magic secret sauce that Google uses to do that.
Sorry, I'm not at liberty to describe any of it. Suffice it to say that
conceptually, Google does some things that you would probably recognize,
but considerably differently.

I'd suggest that you use Google Chorme's (et al.) "Developer Tools" (or
anything else that provides similar visibility into page load) and look
at the various things that happen when using Google search. At least
that will give some visibility into what you can see from a client.

You might want to search for the phrase "Google Global Cache". Google
does publish some information. I know that there have been some
articles from outside of Google that speculate on things. Suffice it to
say that Google search uses more magic secret sauce than GGC does.

Post by g***@cyberdude.com
Thanks.

You're welcome. #hazfun