Friday, April 8, 2011

Facebook Launches Open Data Center Project

Palo Alto-based Facebook said Thursday that it has launched a new, open project to share best practices on creating energy efficient and economical data centers. According to Facebook, it will publish the specifications and mechnical designs it created at its Prineville, Oregon data center, which it says uses 38 percent less energy and cost 24 percent less than its other data center. The firm said it hopes to make it easier for other companies to adopt similar techniques in their own data center efforts. Facebook created its own custom servers, power supplies, battery backup systems, and more for that data center. The new specs are available as part of the new Open Compute Project from Facebook.