谷歌架设6,000英里海底电缆，连接日本与澳大利亚

谷歌（Google）正在扩张其罕为人知却庞大无比的深海帝国。

这家搜索巨头在两周前表示，公司已经开始在日本与澳大利亚之间铺设长达6,000英里的海底电缆，借以增加日益发展的云计算业务的网络容量。

过去十年里，为了在香港、台湾、新加坡等地提供互联网连接、改善服务质量，谷歌已经铺设了多条光纤电缆，该项目则是他们这一系列举措中最新的一个。谷歌的网络架构首席工程师维贾伊·乌斯里卡拉解释道，尽管如今各公司在全世界已铺设了超过300条海底电缆，但它们却无法满足谷歌所需的联网能力——尤其是谷歌拓展海外云计算业务的需求。

旧有的许多海底电缆连接了纽约、伦敦等大城市。但谷歌的数据中心有不少都设在俄勒冈州或美国东南部，这些地区相对偏僻，至少电缆设施不够发达，因此公司必须建立自己的电缆网络。

谷歌之前曾表示，其全球网络由数十万根光纤电缆连接在一起。

乌斯里卡拉表示，日本的科技巨头日本电气（NEC Corporation）和阿尔卡特海底网络（Alcatel Submarine Networks）正在帮助谷歌铺设最新的海底电缆，预计工程将于2019年底完成。他拒绝透露项目的成本。

他说，过去三年里，云计算服务提供商和其他拥有大型数据中心的科技公司正在加快步伐铺设海底光纤电缆。

例如，微软（Microsoft）和Facebook最近就在弗吉尼亚州和西班牙之间铺设了横跨大西洋、长达4,000英里的海底电缆。与谷歌类似，这些公司正在全球各地迅速建立数据中心，他们需要海底电缆把各中心连接起来。

谷歌的全球网络基础设施主管迈克尔·弗朗索瓦表示，在常规的海底电缆项目中，阿尔卡特海底网络这样的公司会派出搭载大约20名船员的船只来铺设电缆。他说，船员会在海上待3至5个月，在大型传送带的帮助下，逐步将船上的大卷光缆铺到海底。

这种电缆本身就是大型的圆形电线，类似于传统的电话电缆，只不过型号巨大。

谷歌从日本到澳大利亚铺设的电缆分为两段。第一段从日本到关岛，第二段从关岛到悉尼。弗朗索瓦表示，考虑到铺设电缆需要的努力，“这是一个大项目，因为电缆需要上岸。”（财富中文网）

译者：严匡正 

Google’s little-known but vast deep-sea empire is expanding.

The search giant said Tuesday that it has started installing a 6,000-mile undersea cable between Japan and Australia in an effort to increase network capacity for its growing cloud computing business.

Google’s new fiber-optic cable is the latest in a series it has installed over the past 10 years to provide Internet connectivity and improve its services in places like Hong Kong, Taiwan, and Singapore. Although there are already over 300 undersea cables worldwide that are owned by various companies, they can’t provide the networking power that Google requires—especially to grow its cloud business overseas, Google’s principal engineer of networking architecture Vijay Vusirikala explained.

Many older undersea cables connect major cities like New York City to London. But because several of Google’s data centers are in more out-of-the-way places —at least for cable infrastructure—like Oregon or the Southeast, the company must build its own cable network.

Google has previously said that its global network is connected by hundreds of thousands of fiber-optic cable.

Japanese technology giant NEC Corporation and Alcatel Submarine Networks are helping Google with the latest cable laying project, which is expected to be completed by the end of 2019, Vusirikala said. He declined to comment about the cost.

Vusirikala said that cloud computing providers and other tech companies with vast data center infrastructure have increased the pace of laying undersea fiber-optic cables over the last three years.

Microsoft and Facebook, for instance, recently installed a 4,000-mile cable across the Atlantic Ocean between Virginia and Spain. Like Google, these companies are rapidly building data centers worldwide and need undersea cables to connect it all.

For a typical undersea cable project, companies like Alcatel Submarine Networks send ships with roughly 20 people to lay the cables, Google global network infrastructure executive Michael Francois said. Crew members can spend three-to-five months at sea to do the work with the help of a giant conveyor belt that gradually unrolls the giant roll of cable onboard, he said.

The cable itself resembles an oversized, circular wire similar to a conventional telephone cable, except supersized.

Google’s cable between Japan and Australia is made up of two segments. One extends from Japan to Guam and another stretches from Guam to Sydney. Considering the effort it takes to lay one of the cables, “it’s a big event when a cable does land or comes on to a shore,” Francois said.