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"Google has released images of its hugely secretive data centres, giving a rare glimpse into &amp;quot;where the internet lives&amp;quot;. A series of photos were posted on the official YouTube blog yesterday, revealing details about the farms of servers which only a handful of Google employees are allowed to access.   The rather beautiful images, taken by Connie Zhou, give a &amp;quot;never-before-seen look at the technology, the people and the places that keep Google running&amp;quot;.  Created as part of the Where the Internet Lives project, the images reveal a multi-coloured maze of cables and equipment, bathed in ambient light.  When Google was started 14 years ago as a student research project by founders Larry Page and Sergey Brin, it was powered using a few cheap, off-the-shelf servers &amp;quot;stacked in creative ways&amp;quot;. But massive growth since then to become the world&amp;#039;s number one web search engine has required Google to significantly scale up its operation.  Its servers now handle billions of web searches every day, along with other tasks such as the millions of videos uploaded to YouTube.  Google has also expanded its business over the years to include email (Gmail), web browsers (Chrome), social networking (Google+) and mobile software (Android), among other services.   To ensure security, Google keeps every piece of data stored on at least two servers, with the most important data also held on digital tapes.  When a hard drive breaks, it is wiped and then also crushed by special machines to ensure it can be safely disposed of.  In addition to the released images, Google has added a tour of its data centre in Lenoir, North Carolina, to the Street View service.  &amp;quot;Walk in the front door, head up the stairs, turn right at the ping-pong table and head down the hall to the data center floor,&amp;quot; Urs H\u00F6lzle, Google&amp;#039;s senior vice president of technical infrastructure, said. &amp;quot;Or take a stroll around the exterior of the facility to see our energy-efficient cooling infrastructure.&amp;quot; Watch a video of the Street View tour below:      "^^<http://www.w3.org/2001/XMLSchema#string>
<http://www.digitalspy.com/tech/news/a431680/google-gives-glimpse-into-where-the-internet-lives/>