Apple May Build Oregon Data Center Next To Facebook's

1sockchuck writes "Apple may build a huge new data center next door to the Facebook server farm in rural Prineville, Oregon. Slashdot has previously noted the potential that Prineville could become a data center mecca due to its climate, which is ideal for using fresh air to cool servers. The scenario could mirror the trend in rural North Carolina, where both Apple and Facebook have built data centers. It's always been likely that Apple will need at least one other large data center complex to provide backup capabilities for the facility in North Carolina."

Comments

Opportunity

[Reyendo]

One well placed nuclear missile...

Re:Opportunity

[Pseudonym Authority]

Fired from orbit, just to be sure.

Re:Opportunity

[Anonymous Coward]

Or just a normal explosive, you freak.

Re:Opportunity

[Luckyo]

Blowin up near the orbit is more then enough. EMP will fry those servers.

better a little more north

[statsone]

Canada offers cheap electricity and even cooler temperatures. More than welcome here.

Re:better a little more north

[mcrbids]

Sadly, your country doesn't have the strong privacy laws like we have in the United States *cough* Patriot Act *cough* so this is not a possibility.

Re:better a little more north

[rtb61]

Build for summer, regret the winters. Cool summer temperatures inevitably mean snow in winter and travel is difficult in snow. Cheap cooling, park yourself near the coast in temperate climes and use heat exchangers to achieve your cooler temperatures. Also avoid, typhoon or hurricane prone zones, tornadoes, seismic instability and of course flooding. Power should also be drawn from more than one grid, close access to a university is also desirable (user testing, direct training), a substantive employment base to avoid having to bring in all staff and, access to main thorough fairs for better transport options is also desirable.

Likely what went on with that choice was some stupidly corrupt pay no taxes deal, something that should be put a stop to a federal, state and county level. What ever happened to all being treated equally, screw the scum sucking corporate tax cheats.

Re:better a little more north

[TubeSteak]

Cheap cooling, park yourself near the coast in temperate climes and use heat exchangers to achieve your cooler temperatures.

There are strict EPA regulations on how much heat you can dump into a body of water.
It's infinitely faster and easier to just park your data center somewhere cold and then deal with the snow.

Re:better a little more north

[QuantumRiff]

Actually, none of the big Oregon Datacenters are near major airports..

Prineville is near Bend, OR, near the center of the state. Bend doesn't have a large airport, and just a few flights a day. Google has their datacenter in TheDalles, OR, about 1.5 hours east of Portland along the Columbia River, and Amazon's is another few hours past Google's, near Hermiston/Umitilla

Re:better a little more north

[cluedweasel]

Summers in Prineville (and central Oregon in general) aren't exactly cool. 90F to 100F temps aren't uncommon. The upside is that they are pretty short. This year we barely got out of winter in July!

Apple and Facebook new theory about data

[TheVelvetFlamebait]

Osmosis!

Ok who else...

[Anonymous Coward]

Looked at zillow upon reading this to see if prineville was worth moving to.

Not bad pricing actually, but lacks some good homes larger than starter. I'm curious if a data center has a need for a good programmer or if they would be hiring grunts while all the tech work is done else where

Re:Ok who else...

[rsmith-mac]

They would just be hiring grunts. The NC Apple data center only has about 50 employees, as the only on-site people they need are techies to keep the servers up. Data centers themselves are capital-intensive but require little in the way of permanent labor beyond the skeleton crew, as the only big labor pushes would be construction and whatever you bring in if you overhaul the systems.

Re:The Job Creators at Work

[93 Escort Wagon]

With another 50 Jobs the unemployment problem should be licked!

Do large data centers employ even that many people? (serious question)

Re:The Job Creators at Work

[AHuxley]

Guards, a few low end staff to swap out the data media when needed 24/7, gardeners so the landscape looks pretty for a congress critter media event, a few smart admins to cover all the real time error reports (off site is fine).
No need for on site engineers, plumbers, electricians, technical staff, admins - just swap out the media and look at id's at the gates.

Error 503 Service Unavailable

[larry bagina]

Maybe slashdot needs an Oregon data center.

Facebook should patent Oregon datacenters

[Anonymous Coward]

Facebook should sue apple for stealing their datacenter location ideas :)

Re:Facebook should patent Oregon datacenters

[Mitsoid]

Wrong, Sir. Facebook is obviously infringing on apple's intellectual property by building a data center that has 4 walls, a floor, and a ceiling.

Re:The Job Creators at Work

[QuantumRiff]

Facebook has about 55 employees onsite in prineville (a town of 10k). They are adding more when they finish their second datacenter at the location. I was reading an article yesterday about how the town loves it.. Facebook orders lunch from a different local restraunt every day for 55 employees. Use locals for as much as they can, and only a few of the employees are transplants, most were trained locally.

Plus more than half of the construction jobs were sourced locally..

Now the amazon datacenter, up in boardman, OR, that is just basically a bunch of shipping containers..

Its like mcDonalds

[QuantumRiff]

When I was a kid, I remember my store manager (one of the franchise owners) mentioning how much research went into a new location for McDonalds. The sheer amount of research, planning, etc. And he (probably jokingly) said that Burger King would just look for where McDonalds was building, and go across the street :)

Conspiracy

[Faulkner39]

I've been told by a reliable source that at their new data center, Apple is building a large slingshot aimed at FaceBook and has been accumulating large quantities of caged birds.