As I post my take on a conference I attended on this very subject it was interesting to find this. The cloud is the new language but it’s true it’s just another data center. Oregon is the destination, there are new jobs that will be created, but what we should all be looking at is how secure will your personal data be at this facility.
Twitter is having similar discussions to aid in less down time but it’s clear that Twitter doesn’t have control over the infrastructure. So who does? Interesting concept if you look past social networks as a place to hang out with your friends.
We should all be following what’s going to happen next, since this is where your content will be sitting.
Facebook Doubles the Size of Its First Data Center
Facebook has decided to double the size of its planned data center in Oregon before the first part of the project is even built, the latest sign of the company’s rapid growth.
Facebook said in January that it was building its first wholly owned data center in Prineville, Oregon, a 147,000-square-foot facility that’s due for completion early next year. It’s now decided to add another 160,000 square feet of data center space on the same site.
Facebook was approaching 400 million users when it announced the data center in January. Last month it crossed the 500 million mark.
Twitter said recently that it too will soon have its own data center. Like Facebook, its servers today are housed in data centers managed by other companies. Having its own facility will give Twitter more control over its infrastructure and, it hopes, reduce its outages.
Greenpeace won’t be thrilled at the expansion plans. The environmental group has criticized Facebook for choosing a site where the local power company gets most of its electricity from coal-fired plants. Greenpeace says Facebook should have chosen a site near a source of renewable energy.
Facebook has countered that it picked Oregon because of its dry and temperate climate. That allows it to use a technique called evaporative cooling to keep its servers cool, instead of a heavy mechanical chiller. Facebook says the data center will be one of the most energy-efficient in the world.
Read more at www.pcworld.com
