Apple's North Carolina data center now visible on Google Earth
Apple's humongous data center in North Carolina is now visible on Google Earth and Google Maps satellite view. You can see the entire building and two roads leading in and out of the compound. Oddly, there is no space for on-site employee parking, at least not yet. An eagle-eyed reader picked out at least one parking lot on the south side of the building for about 80 cars. There may be more.
The high-res image of the nearly completed compound just happened to appear the same day Apple confirmed its iCloud service would be unveiled at WWDC next week. Is this timing merely coincidental, or did Apple persuade Google to withhold its latest satellite imagery until Tuesday's press release was released?
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Apple's humongous data center in North Carolina is now visible on Google Earth and Google Maps satellite view. You can see the entire...
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I was half expecting to see a very large glowing apple logo on top. At a min they should have considered an Apple shaped skylight.
June 01 2011 at 10:57 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Replyhttp://goo.gl/maps/G3YQ
It is even called the "iCloud Data Center"
An eagle eyed reader? Really? Not to detract from the commenters who spotted it, but c'mon. Kelly, when you wrote the article, I don't think you tried to look very hard. Would anyone have finished any kind of building like this without at least some kind of parking lot? A simple zoom in would have addressed it, you didn't have to be "eagle eyed", just had to think a little and use the tools you had at hand. Zooming in further was the first thing I thought of.
June 01 2011 at 10:25 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply+1. Seriously. This counts as eagle eyed? You can identify the handicapped spaces that Steve will inevitably park in.
http://i.imgur.com/2OZCX.jpg
"...one parking lot on the south side of the building for about 80 cars."
I guess that rules out my theory that this was to be "Apple's Mall of MacIntosh" retail store.
I would'nt doubt that if Google had a really good camera on a satellite it could see Steve Jobs walking around the back lot.
June 01 2011 at 10:11 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyIf I zoom right in I think I can see my calendar and address book already there.
June 01 2011 at 10:10 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyIt looks like there is car parking along the left side and also at the left bottom corner - there is a car going round the bottom right corner: this place is BIG!
June 01 2011 at 9:42 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThe parking space is south of the data center, you can clearly see the entrance and exit that lead to the road that surrounds the data center. You can also see five dark cars parking there.
June 01 2011 at 9:40 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyAnother parking space is to the right of the data center, directly adjacent to the the road that leaves the picture to the right. There are three cars parking there.
June 01 2011 at 9:42 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyYeah, there only need to be a few spots. Many dedicated data centers require only a handful of employees.
June 01 2011 at 10:16 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyOut of curiosity, how many employees would even be required to run a data center that large?
June 01 2011 at 9:37 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down ReplyThat's the point - you don't need that many. I've visited several really large data centers of 1&1, one of the largest service providers in Germany, and there really weren't that many people. Also as I already wrote in another comment, there actually ARE two parking areas south and east of the data center, you can see them when you zoom in a little.
June 01 2011 at 9:43 AM Report abuse Permalink rate up rate down Reply@el3ktro: That's actually why I asked the question. I saw the two parking lots and figured 20-30 cars could fit into each. I was just wondering if the facility would only need 50-60 employees working at a time. My experience with data centers is slim, but beyond initial setup, I wouldn't imagine there being a huge need for more than a few techs, some receptionists, and maintenance to be around the place. The hardest part with anything like this is always getting it running right. Once that is completed, it's just scheduled maintenance and repairs as necessary.
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