Number of Servers for Google, Microsoft and Facebook (Hint: mindboggling numbers)
Spencer E. Ante writes about how Facebook will spend the $100 million in venture debt it recently raised. Answer: Facebook will buy another 50,000 servers. Even more interesting is a snapshot of the scale of server farms Google and Microsoft are using.
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Facebook does not disclose the number of servers it operates. But research firm Data Center Knowledge puts the tally at about 10,000. The slug of cash will help Facebook buy approximately 50,000 more servers, giving the company “the kind of headroom they need in the next year or two,” estimates Frank Gillett, a vice-president at Forrester Research (FORR).
Facebook’s appetite for servers reflects the technology arms race among Internet companies that need to ensure rising user demands don’t cripple the systems that support Web pages chockablock with graphics, photos, and videos. Users of the microblogging site Twitter have recently complained publicly about slowdowns and outages related to that site’s fast growth.
Forrester Research’s Gillett estimates that Google, owner of the world’s biggest Web search engine, is buying half a million servers each year, while Microsoft’s (MSFT) annual consumption is as much as 200,000 servers. “The single biggest factor for success is having available capital to build giant computing facilities,” says Gillett. “It is a capital game for these guys who have gotten big and still have significant growth.”