Comments on: Facebook's Insatiable Hunger for Hardware

By: Pete Lundin

Pete Lundin — Wed, 04 Aug 2010 13:39:33 +0000

With that amount of server power running, I hope Facebook considers energy saving and environmental issues a top priority. Siting is definitely one of the most important factors that affect the energy consumption and environmental effects of a server farm. There are cooler climates than in the continental US and with more green electricity available. I would recommend anybody considering siting a datacenter to take a look at the Finnish website on these issues: http://www.fincloud.freehostingcloud.com/

By: Matt

Matt — Sun, 29 Nov 2009 01:50:08 +0000

Obviously you didn't read two comments down.

By: Saad

Saad — Sat, 24 Oct 2009 09:01:52 +0000

Obviously, you didn’t read the whole sentence.

By: Facebook Rules the World | Edgelings.com « Dispatches from the Front

Facebook Rules the World | Edgelings.com « Dispatches from the Front — Mon, 28 Sep 2009 18:44:38 +0000

[...] How many servers are used to host Facebook? The answer is here. Photo courtesy Darren McKeenan. This is one small segment of Facebook's [...]

By: Brian

Brian — Thu, 02 Jul 2009 22:17:46 +0000

I’m going to dream about understanding what the hell you just said tonight

By: ces

ces — Thu, 21 May 2009 05:38:39 +0000

No, Google doesn’t use100 cheap computers instead of 1 powerful server. They *might* use a couple of slightly underpowered computers instead of 1 high end server. Google uses cost effective Intel and AMD processors. Intel uses standard PC disk drives spinning at 5400 to 7200 RPM instead of faster, more reliable SCSI. Google’s real strategy is that they customize the hardware and software for the problem at hand. They design and build their own mother boards, customize the OS, supply their own cluster software: file system, map-reduce, database, remote procedure call, distributed locking, distributed cluster managers; the whole kit and kaboodle.

By: Gear6’s Web Cache Makes Web Scalability Easier

Gear6’s Web Cache Makes Web Scalability Easier — Mon, 20 Apr 2009 16:31:25 +0000

[...] protocol, memcached. Every Top 20 web site not owned by Microsoft uses memcached (Facebook has almost 1,000 servers dedicated to its memcached tier) and 50-60 percent of all Alexa-ranked Top 10,000 sites use it to [...]

By: 10 Billion Facebook Photos - Is That Ecologically Sustainable ?

10 Billion Facebook Photos - Is That Ecologically Sustainable ? — Tue, 21 Oct 2008 15:05:41 +0000

[...] quick maths : Earlier GigaOm reported Facebook to have around 10,000 servers & last May Facebook reportedly borrowed $100 million to [...]

By: Facebook Pokes Dell, Jilts Rackable? - GigaOM

Facebook Pokes Dell, Jilts Rackable? - GigaOM — Thu, 21 Aug 2008 05:31:21 +0000

[...] cozier shouldn’t come as a surprise. Facebook is seriously “server hungry” and has been on a spending spree to beef up its infrastructure. Dell, on the otherhand, has been increasingly seriously about cloud computing and working with [...]

By: Digg, Facebook Connect To Headline at f8Con - GigaOM

Digg, Facebook Connect To Headline at f8Con - GigaOM — Wed, 23 Jul 2008 05:46:02 +0000

[...] Facebook Connect in many ways is the exact opposite approach taken by the company last year when it encouraged hundreds of developers to create applications that lived inside its silo. These applications grew at a breakneck speed and created a bubble of their own. They also put the Facebook infrastructure under extreme stress and on a cost curve that only large revenue streams can support. The inane and pointless apps cost the company a lot of bandwidth, not to mention the rising hardware costs. [...]