Category: Microblogging

Last year, Facebook announced plans to build its second data center in the north of Sweden. The cold air means that Facebook won't have to spend as much money on cooling, which reduces overall energy costs -- by far the biggest expense in running a data center. (Video)

Twitter, the minimalist-format social network that claims to have 100 million users, has built its reputation around its simplicity. Members can post to the service only in text messages of 140 characters or less. They can include a link to another site, or to a photo or video. They can repost other users’ messages on their own pages. They can send each other equally spartan private messages. That’s about it — or so it seems. Enlarge This Image Dongyun Lee Look more closely, and you’ll find that Twitter has been augmented, by the company and by other Internet toolmakers, with a virtual appliance store of simple, utilitarian features, widgets and services that let users find interesting posts, create photo albums or search Twitter more efficiently. Yet unlike, say, Facebook or Microsoft Office, Twitter’s power tools are easy to find and easy to figure out.

A federal judge ruled that Twitter must give information to the Justice Department about three of its account holders who are under investigation for their links to WikiLeaks.

Earlier this year, rumors swirled about whether Twitter had actually moved into a new Utah data center, or if it was forced to move its operations to a different facility. Now there are reports that Twitter is leasing more data center space, this time in Atlanta.

Twitter continues to grow, and its infrastructure is growing along with it. The popular microblogging service recently surpassed 100 million active users, and is once again expanding its data center network to keep pace. This time, Twitter is looking East. After an extensive search in which it considered multiple East Coast sites, Twitter has settled on Atlanta as the location for its next data center. The company will move servers into an enormous data center operated by QTS (Quality Technology Services) in downtown Atlanta, industry sources say. The 990,000 square foot Metro Technology Center, owned by QTS, in downtown Atlanta is one of the world’s largest data centers.

In a press conference at Twitter this morning, CEO Dick Costolo laid out the present growth of the company and what its 100 million users can expect in the near future. More News From VentureBeat Intel Capital Invests $24 Million in Seven New Companies Payvment Has an Actual Plan for Making Money From Facebook Ecommerce Swrve Raises $2.7M for Real-Time Gamer Feedback Intel Positions Itself as a Software Leader Viewsonic Kills HDTV Set With Boxee Integration Costolo touched on three main points: the service’s revamped back end, the growth and changing behavior of users, and Twitter’s business plan and revenue streams. The startup has been through quite the management shuffle over the past year or so. Co-founders Ev Williams and Biz Stone both left the company, and co-founder Jack Dorsey, who had for some time been gone and working on a new venture, Square, returned to Twitter ...

The Rather Glamorous Data CenterThe Data Center JournalCeleste is a high speed internet access provider and has used vertical air cooling for their data center and therefore the inspiration to call it Marilyn. This method of air cooling is stated to be more conducive for increasing energy efficiency. ...and more »

Updated. What’s up with Twitter’s data center strategy? Twitter’s plans are reportedly in disarray according to sources I spoke with yesterday at our Structure 2011 conference in San Francisco. Two people shared that the microblogging service, which announced plans to build a Utah data center back in July 2010, will abandon the site entirely and move its servers to a data center in Sacramento, Calif. I’ve reached out to Twitter for comment, but if this is true, it wouldn’t come as a surprise to those closely watching Twitter’s infrastructure moves. Update: Twitter spokeswoman Carolyn Penner said via email that Twitter has not abandoned the Utah site and added, “I can also confirm that we have multiple sites, but I won’t go into further detail.”

Facebook gave a keynote presentation on its Data Center Design Facebook's Latest Innovations in Data Center Design Senior Electrical Engineer, Facebook  Paul Hsu Datacenter Mechanical Engineer, Facebook Dan Lee Below is a side by side slide Paul presented on the difference between a typical data center power conversion vs. the Facebook design. Dan has a slide with side-by-side comparison of a typical mechanical system vs. the Facebook design. A couple of other slides share are on the Reactor Power Panel and Battery cabinet. The results Facebook shared. For more details you can find information at Facebook's Open Compute Project web site.

Facebook’s new data center in Oregon has gotten its fair share of attention, both for Facebook’s decision to open up the energy-efficient design, and also for Greenpeace’s campaign to try to convince Facebook to stop powering it with coal. But here’s another reason to recognize the data center: Facebook has installed a smart lighting system courtesy of startup Redwood Systems. Sam Klepper, Chief Marketing Officer for Redwood Systems, tells me Facebook is currently using Redwood System’s technology to control over 1,000 lights in Facebook’s data center in Oregon, and Facebook plans to add the lighting system to the rest of the buildings at the Oregon data center shortly.

Twitter has completed a major data center migration and expansion, the company said today. The infrastructure expansion will help the fast-growing microblogging service manage its dynamic growth, which has seen traffic scale to more than 140 million tweets each day.

Twitter is experiencing performance problems this afternoon, most likely due to high traffic as users track dramatic developments in the nuclear emergency in Fukushima, Japan. The Twitter.com web interface seemed to be experiencing the most serious availability problems, but the company said that application trafic using Twitter’s API was also affected.

LinkedIn, the popular social networking site built around professional relationships, plans to go public this year and has hired banks to advise it on the process, people with direct knowledge of the matter said on Wednesday. LinkedIn chose Morgan Stanley, Bank of America Merrill Lynch and JPMorgan Chase as three advisers, following a round of pitches held in early November, said one of these people, who requested anonymity because the process was confidential.

In Data Centers a “Fight Club” metaphor can be used to describe the secrecy behind a competitive group. Where little is said out in the public. The big fight in 2009 was a Google vs. Microsoft for PUE and efficient data centers. PUE is now a common term and even used by some to specify data centers. 2010 Facebook has emerged as a competitor, and there are many other companies that tops in their category like Twitter, Skype, and Zynga. TechCrunch discusses the talent wars for top engineers. Data Centers are not mentioned in the article, but none of these companies can exist without data centers.

What’s the latest on Twitter’s data center expansion? The company’s not saying. But we’re hearing that Twitter has leased data center space in a facility in Sacramento, Calif. and apparently postponed or shelved its original plans to open a new facility in Salt Lake City. Twitter currently manages its infrastructure through a managed hosting agreement with NTT America, which has cited Twitter’s growth as a driver in the expansion of its data center network. In April Twitter announced plans to add a data center of its own to handle the rapid growth of the microblogging service, which has added more than 100 million new users in 2010. The company announced new funding today, which will help buy more servers and data center space.