Andrew Blum’s book is part travelogue, part philosophical musing and part product manual. His journey is to the physical touch points of the internet from those on his doorstep such as 111 Eight Avenue, 60 Hudson St and 32 Avenue of the Americas – Mr Blum is a New Yorker – to much further afield.

The travelogue also sees him journey from Milwaukee to Ashburn, Virginia, and Oregon to the UK, Frankfurt, Portugal and Singapore. He visits numerous connection hubs – Equinix gets some excellent write-ups. It appears it was the most friendly and accessible.

Blum’s description of the origins of internet exchanges is engaging, as are his descriptions of the networks and how they connect in exchanges around the world. He moves through the hubs and visits landing points for trans-oceanic cables. He interviews many of the companies and people quoted in FOCUS magazine and online.

Beyond the design, build and operate players and telcos, Blum also looks into the world of big internet players such as Facebook and Google. Facebook he is positive about, Google less so, because they wouldn’t let him past the cafeteria on his data center visit.
However – and things move fast in this world – his conclusion that “knowing how big a data center is, how much power it uses and precisely what is inside it is the kind of proprietary information technology companies are eager to keep under  wraps” is only partly true, especially for big web companies.

In the chapter called ‘Where Data Sleeps’ his conclusion that there is a cloak of secrecy around the infrastructure is outdated. He says he is frustrated by the secrecy around data location and “that feigned obscurity becomes a malignant advantage of the Cloud”.
Blum succeeds best in his descriptions of the physical attributes of the internet.
There is much here for data center professionals to enjoy.

ISBN: 978-0-670-92898-0
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