Facebook's Tom Furlong annuonces the data center, pictured on the Lulea facility's facebook page
(WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — In the same week that Facebook’s Open Compute Project (www.opencompute.org) formalized some of its organizational structure at its summit in New York City, the company announced plans for a data center in Lulea, Sweden that will showcase some of the design principles that helped found that project.
The Lulea data center will be the company’s first outside the US, in part an effort for Facebook to provide faster service to users in Europe and beyond.
The company says the location offers a climate that will enable the data center to use outside air for cooling 8-10 months out of the year, significantly reducing energy consumption. It also provides a strong power infrastructure, enabling Facebook to use redundant substations, fed by two independent sources, and reduce the number of generators installed by approximately 70 percent.
The data center will employ electrical design elements very similar to those seen in the company’s Prineville data center, and in the Open Compute Project.
Specific environmental controls include airside economizers, evaporative cooling systems, re-use of server heat, proprietary UPS technology and a patented generator design. Facebook says it expects the power usage efficiency of the project to be similar to that of its Prineville facility (which rates a 1.07), which should beat its state-of-the-art-rated target of 1.15.
Facebook says it is pursuing LEED Gold certification from the US Green Building Council for the building design, as well as BREEAM, the European standard for green building design.
The company’s custom designed server architecture delivers uncommon efficiency in areas ranging from power consumption (much less fan power required, removing speakers) to shipping (machines are designed to fit precisely into shipping containers).
One of the interesting roles of the new data center will be as a showcase for the principles of the Open Compute Project, which has grown since its launch roughly six months ago to include the input of people and organizations outside of Facebook.
Of course, the facility has a Facebook page. You can follow the progress of the Lulea data center on project’s page on the social network.
About Liam Eagle
Liam Eagle has worked as a contributor to the Web Host Industry Review since its inception in 2000, and as editor since 2003. He has been editor of the WHIR's print magazine since its launch. His daily involvement in the gathering and reporting of Web hosting news and his regular interaction with Web hosting leaders gives him an uncommonly broad appreciation of the issues and tends facing the business. Through his WHIR blog, Liam spots Web hosting trends and offers opinions on the industry-wide impacts of major developments and the motivation behind big announcements. Follow him on Twitter @liameagle
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