WIRED BusinessSpanner, the Google Database That Mastered Time, Is Now Open to Everyone
About a decade ago, a handful of Google’s most talented engineers started building a system that seems to defy logic. Called Spanner, it was the first global database, a way of storing information across millions of machines in dozens of data centers spanning multiple continents, and it now underpins everything from Gmail to AdWords, the company’s primary moneymaker. But it’s not just the size of this creation that boggles the mind.
