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Inside Facebook's Infrastructure
miller60 writes "Facebook served up 690 billion page views to its 540 million users in August, according to data from Google's DoubleClick. How does it manage that massive amount of traffic? Data Center Knowledge has put together a guide to the infrastructure powering Facebook, with details on the size and location of its data centers, its use of open source software, and its dispute with Greenpeace over energy sourcing for its newest server farm. There are also links to technical presentations by Facebook staff, including a 2009 technical presentation on memcached by CEO Mark Zuckerberg."
you got me there. i shall seek revenge.
That's all.
RIP America
July 4, 1776 - September 11, 2001
It's time to invent the Facebook Identity card.
You can't remember your passport number? No worries, your Facebook Identity card will say who you are. And how many friends you've got. And the name of your pet. And whether you went to the bathroom at your usual time that morning. And what kind of men you find attractive.
Semper Facebook Identity!
Maybe Data Center Knowledge should put some of that knowledge to work, as the article is slashdotted after only 5 comments.
Looks like Data Center Knowledge could use some of that infrastructure.
I managed to load the first page of the article before it got slashdotted:
With more than 500 million active users, Facebook is the busiest site on the Internet and has built an extensive infrastructure to support this rapid growth. The social networking site was launched in February 2004, initially out of Facebook founder Mark Zuckerberg’s dorm room at Harvard University and using a single server. The company’s web servers and storage units are now housed in data centers around the country.
Each data center houses thousands of computer servers, which are networked together and linked to the outside world through fiber optic cables. Every time you share information on Facebook, the servers in these data centers receive the information and distribute it to your network of friends.
We’ve written a lot about Facebook’s infrastructure, and have compiled this information into a series of Frequently Asked Questions. Here’s the Facebook Data Center FAQ (or “Everything You Ever Wanted to Know About Facebook’s Data Centers”).
How Big is Facebook’s Internet Infrastructure?
Facebook is currently the world’s most popular web site, with more than 690 billion page views each month, according to metrics from Google’s DoubleClick service. Facebook currently accounts for about 9.5 percent of all Internet traffic, slightly more than Google, according to HitWise.
Facebook requires massive storage infrastructure to house its enormous stockpile of photos, which grows steadily as users add 100 million new photos every day. People share more than 30 billion pieces of content on Facebook each month. In addition, the company’s infrastructure must support platform services for more than 1 million web sites and 550,000 applications using the Facebook Connect platform.
To support that huge activity, Facebook operates at least nine data centers on both coasts of the United States, and is in the process of building its first company-built data center in Oregon. Although more than 70 percent of Facebook’s audience is in other countries, none of the company’s data centers are located outside the United States.
For most of its history, Facebook has managed its infrastructure by leasing “wholesale” data center space from third-party landlords. Wholesale providers build the data center, including the raised-floor technical space and the power and cooling infrastructure, and then lease the completed facility. In the wholesale model, users can occupy their data center space in about five months, rather than the 12 months needed to build a major data center. This has allowed Facebook to scale rapidly to keep pace with the growth of its audience.
In January 2010 Facebook announced plans to build its own data centers, beginning with a facility in Prineville, Oregon. This typically requires a larger up-front investment in construction and equipment, but allows greater customization of power and cooling infrastructure.
Where are Facebook’s Data Centers Located?
Facebook currently leases space in about six different data centers in Silicon Valley, located in Santa Clara and San Jose, and at least one in San Francisco. The company has also leased space in three wholesale data center facilities in Ashburn, Virginia. Both Santa Clara and Ashburn are key data center hubs, where hundreds of fiber networks meet and connect, making them ideal for companies whose content is widely distributed.
Facebook’s first company-built data center is nearing completion in Prineville, Oregon. If Facebook’s growth continues at the current rate, it will likely require a larger network of company-built data centers, as seen with Google, Microsoft, Yahoo and eBay.
How Big Are Facebook’s Server Farms?
A rendering of an aerial view of the Facebook data center in Princeville, Oregon.
As Facebook grows, its data center requirements are growing along with it. The new data center Oregon
Can anyone tell me why 99% of
Facebook is... Facebook has... fucking SEO monkeys must be at work making sure the company isn't referred to as "it", because that ruins the google-ability of the article, and they'd rather have SEO ratings than text that reads like it's been written by a fucking 3rd grader.
SEO-experts... even worse than lawyers.
What time is it/will be over there? Check with my iPhone app!
It links to Facebook's "wrong browser" page. The real link may be here: http://www.facebook.com/video/video.php?v=631826881803
You are using an incompatible web browser.
Sorry, we're not cool enough to support your browser. Please keep it real with one of the following browsers:
* Mozilla Firefox
* Safari
* Microsoft Internet Explorer
-------------
Using Firefox 3.6.10.
USENET and /. (RIP Digg)
Obligatory Coral cache link: http://www.datacenterknowledge.com.nyud.net/the-facebook-data-center-faq/
All i get is a message saying they are not cool enough to support my browser and i should go install a "real" browser. I am using firefox so wtf? amatuer.
The article isn't worth reading IMO, not unless you're curious as to how much electricity some of the FB datacenters use. Otherwise it's light on the tech details.
----- The internet has given everyone the ability to have their voice heard equally as loud.. even if they shouldn't be
Started reading and got to the aerial rendering of Facebook's new data center in Princeville, Oregon. From the rendering it looked more like western Oregon (not that I have ever been) so I decided to Google Map it. Searching google maps and regular google results there doesnt seem to be a Princeville, Oregon. Where the heck is Priceville, Oregon?
Call me dense, but with all the racks of 1U x86 equipment FB uses, wouldn't they be far better served by machines built from the ground up to handle the TPM and I/O needs?
Instead of trying to get so many x86 machines working, why not go with upper end Oracle or IBM hardware like a pSeries 795 or even zSeries hardware? FB's needs are exactly what mainframes are built to accomplish (random database access, high I/O levels) and do the task 24/7/365 with five 9s uptime.
To boot, the latest EMC, Oracle and IBM product lines are good at energy saving. The EMC SANs will automatically move data and spin down drives not in use to save power. The CPUs on the top of the line equipment not just power down what parts are not in use, but wise use of LPARs or LDoms would also help with energy costs just due to having fewer machines.
"690 billion page views to its 540 million users in August"? Good lord, that's 1278 page views PER USER in just one month! That's (on average) 41 page views per user, per day, every single day! The mind boggles.
Support Right To Repair Legislation.
Its interesting how FB is open about their data server infrastructure while some places like Google and MicroSoft ware very secretive. It is competitive for Google to shave every tenth of second off of a search they can through clever software and hardware. They are an "on ramp" to the Information Super Highway, not a destination like FB. And because Google is one of the largest data servers on the planet, even small efficiency increases translate in mega-million-dollar savings.
When these data centers start showing up as measurable consumers of the national power grid and components of the GDP, you might consider them metamorphically as power-plants of the information industry.
In his book on the modern energy industry "The Bottomless Well", author Peter Huber places commodity computing near the top of his "energy pyramid". Peter's thesis is modern technology has transformed energy into ever more sophisticated and useful forms. He calls this "energy refining". At the base of his pyramid are relative raw energy like biomass and coal. The come electrivity, computing, optical, etc. I think its interesting to view computing a refined form of energy.
lol: "using coal to power our data center in a COOL climate area gives
less carbon footprint then locating it in a warmer region but with renewable
energy".
i don't care how much RENEWABLE energy you are using. use trillions. it's freaking RENEWABLE!