Apparently, Google firmly decided to leave Russia, and therefore began to actively burn all the bridges that allowed it to stay there. First, the company limited the operation of all paid services, then declared bankruptcy, and now it has also begun to turn off the Google Global Cache servers that previously served Russia.
In general, it sounds harmless. But in fact, it is much more dangerous than it might seem at first glance. How will turning off servers turn out for Russians? read in this article.
Google Global Cache servers , as the name suggests, are responsible for caching data. For the average user, this term means almost nothing. And, meanwhile, it is thanks to caching that it is possible to ensure faster data transfer to users of Google proprietary services.
I agree, it doesn’t sound very clear. But here’s a simple example for you. If you remember how YouTube worked 7-10 years ago, you will understand that videos took a very long time to load then. To watch a 5-minute video, it was necessary to wait 10 minutes for it to load completely. Now there are no such problems thanks to Google Global Cache.
Google leaves Russia
The main Google servers are located in the US, and the Global Cache servers simply stored the information viewed by other users in Russia so that you can download it faster
In very simple terms, the Google Global Cache servers seem to remember the content that other users watched before you. And then, when you turn to it, they give it to you. This way, your operator doesn’t have to upload the video from scratch, and it streams without delay.
Google Global Cache servers are built into the backbone system of Russian ISPs and receive data from Google servers in the United States. They essentially store the content that someone has viewed, allowing you to take advantage of the fact that it is stored near you rather than being streamed across the ocean, and watch it in real time because it downloads almost instantly.
It is important to understand that not only Google branded services work on the capacities of Global Cache servers . The search giant also rents them out to other companies that, thanks to global caching technology , reduce the response time of their services and increase the loading speed of the content they offer.
Will Russian providers be able to compensate for the lack of Google Global Cache? Most likely they can. According to experts, the modern equipment that Rostelecom, Megafon, MTS and other operators have at their disposal is generally quite efficient, and their bandwidth is enough so that users do not lose speed.
What will happen to the Internet in Russia
Most likely, YouTube in Russia will not work slower. But the load on providers will increase, which means that Internet prices may also increase.
But due to the fact that now the entire load will fall on the providers themselves, respectively, the volume of traffic that they will have to process from scratch will increase. As a result, the load on the infrastructure will increase, and to compensate for this, providers may increase the price of Internet access for end users.
At this stage, Google is breaking contracts only with small – as a rule, regional – providers. And Rostelecom, MTS, Megafon, Beeline and others, in their words, have not yet observed outages. Perhaps Google is simply minimizing costs, because cooperation with small operators is not as profitable for it as with large ones.
However, Eldar Murtazin, editor-in-chief of Mobile-Review.com, is sure that Google will remove its servers from Russia after all. But, in his opinion, nothing will change from this:
“Users simply will not see the difference in the quality of services, YouTube will also work for sure , we have a good and fast telecom, connectivity is excellent. For operators, traffic will increase at exchange points with Europe, which is not important. In general, no terrible horror happened, everything is going as expected.”
It turns out that there will be no global deterioration in the work of online services ? Well, apparently not. The Internet in Russia is really quite fast, and it has to cope with the increased load. That is, videos on YouTube will not be loaded really slower. Another thing is that our entire infrastructure is built on foreign equipment, and if suppliers refuse to deliver it there, they will no longer be laughing.
