{"id":654023,"date":"2013-04-23T16:09:12","date_gmt":"2013-04-23T20:09:12","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/gigaom.com\/?p=633594"},"modified":"2013-04-23T16:09:12","modified_gmt":"2013-04-23T20:09:12","slug":"data-center-rivals-facebook-and-google-pump-700m-in-new-construction-into-iowa","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/mereja.media\/index\/654023","title":{"rendered":"Data center rivals Facebook and Google pump $700M in new construction into Iowa"},"content":{"rendered":"

Data center nerds got two big announcements today with both Google and Facebook announcing big projects. Facebook\u2019s new data center construction in Iowa is the fourth data center for the search giant, while Google\u2019s Iowa expansion carriers a higher price tag. But the dueling news releases also highlight a growing infrastructure rivalry between these web giants.<\/p>\n

Facebook formally announced the construction of a new data center<\/a> in Altoona, Iowa. Construction on the first phase will begin this summer and your Facebook likes and photos will start traveling over the data center in late 2014 according to Tom Furlong, vice president of site operations at Facebook. <\/p>\n

He said that while newspaper reports placed the value of the center<\/a> at $1 billion to $1.5 billion, he\u2019s unsure where those figures came from. This first phase will cost $300 million and result in a 476,000 square-foot data center. That square footage includes both offices and floor space. Like Facebook\u2019s data center in Lulea, Sweden<\/a> the hardware inside will be built for Facebook<\/a> to its Open Compute standards. <\/p>\n

\"Facebook's<\/a><\/p>\n

Facebook\u2019s data center in Prineville, Ore.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

When I asked Furlong if the Altoona data center would be built for disaster recovery purposes \u2014 as some of my sources had suggested \u2014 he told me, \u201cwe\u2019re in the N+1 mode,\u201d meaning he was building out capacity beyond what he needs to serve customers. While Furlong was clear that the data center would be more than just a failover site for Facebook\u2019s Prineville, Ore.; Forest City, N.C.; Lulea, Sweden or leased data center space, it would represent excess capacity that could still support traffic from other sites if a region failed.<\/p>\n

He also alluded to mechanical, electrical and networking improvements, but other than saying that servers handling similar products would be grouped together he declined to get specific. But I\u2019m hoping his boss, Jay Parikh, the VP of infrastructure engineering at Facebook who is speaking at Structure in June will share the details<\/a>.<\/p>\n

On the capital investment side, Facebook said in its 10-K filing that it planned to spend $1.8 billion in capital expenditures in 2013. When asked if this data represented a large chunk of that, Furlong said it didn\u2019t. AND at $300 million it probably wouldn\u2019t, especially if servers and gear wouldn\u2019t make it into the data center until 2014 as Furlong suggested.<\/p>\n

But wait, there\u2019s more! <\/h2>\n

But in a curious bit of timing, Google today said it would expand its Iowa data center operations in (relatively) nearby Council Bluff, Iowa. The search giant will spend $400 million building out its existing data center operations, bringing its total spent in the area to $1.5 billion. The data center houses computer systems and associated components that support services such as Google Search, Gmail, Google Maps and Google+.<\/p>\n