Data centers might not be the most glamorous thing about the Internet but they keep something ugly from happening: A crash or outage can tarnish an online company’s image. Facebook has taken admirable steps to prevent such glitches from recurring after small increase in said events occurred last quarter.
And that’s what makes the new data center Facebook just launched in North Carolina so cool. Not to mention the $450 million price tag, the fact that it’s the first such center that the company has complete ownership of.
We’ve previously covered the fact that this data center will have coal power, and environmentalists don’t like that one bit. But North Carolina residents are thrilled, including Governor Bev Purdue, who formally announced the data center today. It’s easy to see why she would dig it:
The facility is expected to create more than 250 construction and mechanical jobs during its 18-month building phase. When construction is completed, the data center will employ around 35-45 full-time and contract workers. Facebook is expected to invest about $450 million dollars in the new data center. Additional construction phases may be possible in the future, depending on business needs.
State officials and Facebook staff have been negotiating this development for about a year. Translation: the company gets tax breaks and helps finance North Carolina’s efforts to improve the land.
i want to know when this data center goes live
Comment by mnemonic — November 16, 2010 @ 6:02 am
[...] Facebook had started out leasing data centers and has over the past year moved toward creating its own, wholly owned data centers, and as part of that process the company has engineered more efficient servers that use energy in moderation. One wholly-owned data center is already running in Prineville, Oregon, while another one is under construction in North Carolina. [...]
Pingback by LIVE At Facebook For The Open Compute Project Announcement — April 7, 2011 @ 2:15 pm
[...] Wistron is providing servers for the social network’s data center in Forest City, North Carolina. [...]
Pingback by Next Up On Facebook’s Data Center List: Taiwan — November 8, 2011 @ 1:18 pm