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How Facebook Serves Up 300 Million Users
It takes a lot of infrastructure to support 300 million users. Here's a look at how Facebook does it.
Rich Miller
September 16, 2009
2 Min Read
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A look at the fully-packed racks inside a Facebook data center facility.
Facebook announced last night that it now has more than 300 million active users, meaning the social network has been adding users at an average rate of 670,000 per day. Most of those users are uploading photos and videos, which requires a lot of storage and computing assets.
That's why Facebook has been aggressively expanding its infrastructure by leasing wholesale data center space from DuPont Fabros Technology (DFT) in Virginia and Digital Realty Trust in California. Here's a look at some of our coverage of the growth of Facebook's data center infrastructure:
Facebook Makes Big Investment in Data Centers: The company has just locked down a large chunk of data center space in northern Virginia that will provide room for thousands of additional servers for growth in 2011 and beyond.
Facebook: Managing Epic Growth in Real-Time: CTO Jonathan Heiliger presents an overview of Facebook's back-end operations at the Velocity 2009 conference in June.
Facebook Spending $20 Million a Year on Data Centers: An analysis of Facebook's data center leases as of May 2009.
A Look Inside Facebook's Data Center: A recruitment video provides a glimpse inside the server-packed racks and aisles of a Facebook data center.
Facebook Expanding Its Data Centers, Again: In early 2009 the company leased additional space in its East Coast hub in Ashburn, Virginia.
Facebook Pushes Limits on Memcached: Caching is key to massive web scalabilty. Here's how Facebook is extending a popular caching technology.
Facebook Borrows $100 Million to Buy Servers: Last year Facebook borrowed money to finance additional investment in servers to support its rapid growth.
Here are some "Facebook by the numbers" posts:
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