Facebook building $1.5 billion data center in Altoona, Iowa

DNP  Facebook building $15 billion data center in Altoona, Iowa

Facebook has already set up shop in North Carolina and Oregon, but it's heading to Iowa for its next -- and biggest -- data center. According to the Des Moines Register, the town of Altoona will be home to a 1.4-million-square-foot facility (code-named Catapult), and it will reportedly be the "most technologically advanced center in the world." Why Altoona, you ask? The city is already home to several data hubs, as its fiber-optic cable system, access to power and water utilities and affordable land are big draws for companies. Facebook will complete project Catapult in two $500 million phases, though the entire cost will reportedly ring in at $1.5 billion. The social network is also seeking wind energy production tax credits, which is no doubt connected to its Open Compute Project for promoting energy efficiency. That's all we know so far; suffice to say a center this big won't be built overnight.

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Via: TechCrunch

Source: Des Moines Register

Facebook releases its 2011 energy usage report, details your carbon footprint

Facebook releases its 2011 energy usage report, details your carbon footprint

More Facebook news, but this time we're back to the numbers instead of reporting on a new feature, improvement or integration. As part of its mission to swap the familiar blue for something of a greener tinge, Facebook released today its carbon footprint and overall energy usage figures for 2011. Turning bio-babble into easy visualizations, the company points out that for the whole year, an active user occupied roughly the same carbon footprint as one medium latte. Or, if you're a fan of the tipple, a couple of glasses of wine. Impressively, 23 percent of the social giant's energy usage came from clean and renewable sources, which puts it well on the way to its 2015 target of 25 percent or more. If you'd like more info and a complete breakdown of the stats, the full report is available at the source link below.

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Facebook releases its 2011 energy usage report, details your carbon footprint originally appeared on Engadget on Wed, 01 Aug 2012 20:58:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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Facebook flips the switch on its North Carolina data center, cooled with balmy mountain air

Facebook flips the swtich on its North Carolina data center, cooled with balmy mountain air

Since breaking ground in Western North Carolina some 16 months ago, Facebook has been running at full speed to get its newest data center online. This week, Zuckerberg & Co. flipped the switch. The new facility, located in Forest City, touts the "first major deployment" of the outfit's Open Compute Project web servers and will be the first "live test" of the OPC's outdoor air-cooling design. It tends to get pretty warm around those parts and humidity levels are a bit outside of ideal data center conditions. The Carolina facility will mirror the projected power utilization effectiveness (PUE) of FB's Oregon data center at just a smidge above 1 - somewhere between 1.06 and 1.08 to be exact. In other words, this means the ratio of power used by the structure and the actual power sent to the hardware is almost perfect with minimal energy loss. No matter, it'll still be using plenty of power. A second identical building is slated to open on the site later this year, but for now, hit the source link for a bit more info on the initial launch.

Continue reading Facebook flips the switch on its North Carolina data center, cooled with balmy mountain air

Facebook flips the switch on its North Carolina data center, cooled with balmy mountain air originally appeared on Engadget on Sat, 21 Apr 2012 03:05:00 EDT. Please see our terms for use of feeds.

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