Scaling Google's peaks
Published: 11 May 2004 15:00 BST
We have more than 10,000 computers, as part of a rich tradition, in terms of commercial Web search engines. However, it is definitely the case for us that we developed the infrastructure we have in order to better be able to do search.
We needed something that could grow very easily, because we knew the Web would grow very quickly. We had to develop algorithms that we could easily scale so that we could just get more capacity, as we added more computers, and we would not need to rewrite any code. So, keeping those ideals in mind, let us grow Google to the size it is today from something that was orders of magnitude smaller -- a thousand times smaller -- from when we first started the company.
But the thing that we found is that a lot of these techniques are useful for the more general task of making lots of information available. Gmail is a perfect example of this. And this amount of information could be as big as the Web or even bigger in aggregate. We have the technical know-how to be able to do that as well.
Then what other applications is Google working on?
I cannot talk in specifics. The general direction I think are some of the things that I have been talking about already: making more and more types of information available. Gmail is trying to search over private information -- that is our first real effort into that area.
What have you learned from the negative reactions to Gmail from privacy advocates and now lawmakers?
What I have learned is that Google plays a very important part in people's lives, and it is worthwhile for people to get worked up about. I remember the last time there was a big brouhaha over something that Google did, which was when we acquired the Usenet archives from Deja.com, and the Usenet community was all up in arms about what this meant for the future of Usenet and being able to get access to the information.
Over time, it became familiar, and they had the chance to play around with the product and see that it actually was really good. That brouhaha subsided, and I expect and hope that the same thing will happen in this case. The issues that are important to people any company should take seriously, and I feel that we are doing so.
How do you think the service might change?
It is premature for me to speculate on what changes might happen.
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