There are a few inaccuracies here about the Google SOA, eg. there <i>are</i> language restrictions at Google and they meant to say GFS instead of Colossus in several places (Colossus has a different architecture that isn&#x27;t exactly what I&#x27;d call &quot;cleanly layered&quot;.)<p>Their overall point about the system having evolved organically rather than being designed by a single architect stands, though.