Hey, the internet is a series of tubes after all!

[progressoid]

Photographed for google’s new website, 'where the internet lives', images capture a never before seen behind-the-scenes glimpse into their high-tech data centers. The pictures demonstrate the complexities involved in securing and hosting data for the world's largest search engine browser. Featured are google's eight data centers, including those in Belgium, Finland and the United States.

These colorful pipes are responsible for carrying water in and out of the Oregon data center.
The blue pipes supply cold water and the red pipes return the warm water back to be cooled.



Each server rack has four switches, connected by a different colored cable. These colors are kept the same
throughout the data center to know which one to replace in case of failure.



Hovering above the floor in Council Bluffs, Iowa, the scale of google's data center there begins to take shape.
Huge steel beams both support the structure and help distribute power.



Water storage tanks below the cooling towers ensure they have water available whenever needed.



Insulated pipes like these have a U-bend so they can expand and contract as the fluid temperature inside the pipe changes.



The system of pipes composes a water filtration unit underneath a cooling tower outside the data center in Lenoir, North Carolina.



Lots more cool photos at http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/gallery/#/tech

via http://www.designboom.com/weblog/cat/16/view/24303/where-the-internet-lives-behind-the-scenes-at-googles-data-centers.html