As Cloud Growth Booms, Server Farms Get Super-Sized

1sockchuck writes: Internet titans are concentrating massive amounts of computing power in regional cloud campuses housing multiple data centers. These huge data hubs, often in rural communities, enable companies to rapidly add server capacity and electric power amid rapid growth of cloud hosting and social sharing. As this growth continues, we'll see more of these cloud campuses, and they'll be bigger than the ones we see today. Some examples from this month: Google filed plans for a mammoth 800,000 square foot data center near Atlanta, Equinix announced 1 million square feet of new data centers on its campus in Silicon Valley, and Facebook began work on a $1 billion server farm in Texas that will span 750,000 square feet.

Comments

politicians are clueless.

[nimbius]

Politicians welcome them as shining symbols of the new economy

Datacenters are the silver surfer of economies. Ive worked for large hosting companies, and we once broke ground on a new datacenter in rural virginia. I was tasked with arriving on site to oversee bringing it online. i spent most of my time taking pictures with the mayor, and giving tours to school children. The reality I had to explain to parents and kids is this:

1. water: we drilled our own well, so you wont get a dime form us for cracs. even the urinals flushed with our supply.
2. power: Your politician sold you down the river, as we dont pay taxes on this for a long time. all our lighting inside is solar.
3. Jobs: No. you dont understand. Once I leave, no one goes in or out for six months or so. Emerson power flies their technicians from Los Angeles or a regional hub to our datacenter as part of our agreement. we intentionally ensure your local HVAC company doesnt get the chance to screw this up. we manage and monitor security centrally from los angeles. generators are tested remotely, and if we need new servers we send our teams from LA to rack and power them. we dont need people to change the bulbs, we dont need people to clean the floors, we dont need people to wash the nonexistent windows. Enjoy your poverty.
4. General Contractors: your rural contractors arent qualified to build a datacenter, and probably never will be. We brought our own engineers and foremen to subcontract to your lowest bidder. they will be watched like a hawk. We didnt even allow the subcontractors to add their logo or contact information to substation equipment or even add a logo on the fence.