Social Year in Review: The 10 Most Shared Data Center Stories of 2014

While the likes of Facebook, Google, Apple and others were busy making headlines in 2014, our readers were busy sharing the news. Here's a look back at the 10 most shared articles on Data Center Knowledge during 2014. Enjoy!

Facebook Turned Off Entire Data Center to Test Resiliency - A few months ago, Facebook added a whole new dimension to the idea of an infrastructure stress test. The company shut down one of its data centers in its entirety to see how the safeguards it had put in place for such incidents performed in action.

Ten of the Strangest Data Center Outages - Every once in a while, utility power goes out and the backup systems fail, or a technician makes a mistake, and the data center goes down. While outages have become less frequent, as the industry’s practices continuously improve, things still occasionally go wrong.

Hurricane Sandy was a freak of nature that caused floods in many basements with critical infrastructure, some bringing down data centers in those buildings for days.

Google Dumps MapReduce in Favor of New Hyper-Scale Analytics System - Google has abandoned MapReduce, the system for running data analytics jobs spread across many servers the company developed and later open sourced, in favor of a new cloud analytics system it has built called Cloud Dataflow.

Facebook Breaks the Network Switch Up Into Modules - After it customized servers and storage to optimize for its applications and to enable its developers to roll out new software features at lightning speeds, networking switches were the remaining component of Facebook’s infrastructure that was a “black box,” with tightly coupled vendor-designed proprietary software and hardware.

IBM SoftLayer London Data Center Close to Launch - In January, IBM SoftLayer, Big Blue’s cloud services division, laid out a plan to open 15 new data centers as part of a $1.2 billion global investment to strengthen its cloud play around the world. Today the company announced a big step in that plan: a data center in London set to launch in early July that will satisfy customers that care about keeping their data within UK borders.

Fire at Bitcoin Mine Destroys Equipment - Reports of a fire in a warehouse-style facility in Thailand have raised tough questions about the wisdom of hosting expensive bitcoin mining equipment in low-cost warehouse facilities.

Photo of the devastation being circulated on social media (Reddit, BitcoinTalk)

Google Using Machine Learning to Boost Data Center Efficiency - Google is using machine learning and artificial intelligence to wring even more efficiency out of its mighty data centers.

Apple To Build Third Solar Farm Near North Carolina Data Center - Apple is planning a third solar farm in the vicinity of its Maiden, North Carolina, data center.

One of Apple's solar farms in North Carolina. (Image: Apple)

The SUPERNAP Goes Global, as Switch Adds International Partners - The SUPERNAP is going global. Colocation pioneer Switch has formed a joint venture to launch an international expansion, teaming with Accelero Capital Holdings and Orascom TMT Investments (OTMTI) to build SUPERNAP data centers around the world.

The Home Data Center: Man Cave for the Internet Age - In the ultimate manifestation of the “server hugger” who wants to be close to their equipment, a number of hobbyists and IT professionals have set up data centers in their home, creating server rooms in garages, basements and home offices.

Stay current on data center news by subscribing to our daily email updates and RSS feed, or by following us on Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and Google+.