Facebook's Custom Data Centers
Posted by Elizabeth English on Fri, Jan 22, 2010 @ 09:44 PM
Facebook's amazing growth in an unprecedentedly short time has been a topic of interest to data center enthusiasts for some time. The news that they are building their own custom data centers is another interesting plot point in the story of Facebook, which is definitely one of the phenomenons of our generation.
As we would expect based on Facebook's history, the new data center announced in Oregon boasts some very environmentally-friendly features. Instead of chillers, the new data center will be using evaporated water and that cool, outdoors Oregon air.
Company officials expect to attain greater energy and cost savings than they did when leasing entire third-party data centers for their purposes. The specificity possible in custom-building is an interesting and appealing route for them to take. Public records, although the company has been quiet on the subject, indicate that the cost of constructing the new facility will reach about $188 million.
The Facebook page for the new data center announces that they will hire 35 employees to maintain the facility, at 150% of whatever the regional prevailing rates of pay are, starting in the third quarter of this year.
See The Register's article for more details on this new data center.
Awesome.
-Elizabeth English
photo by Lee Coursey under flickr creative commons license