Top 5 Data Center Stories: Week of April 9

Facebook Unveils Custom Servers, Facility Design - Facebook today unveiled details of its new technology infrastructure, which features custom-built servers, racks and UPS units that will fill its new data center in Prineville, Oregon. The project is Facebook’s first company-built facility, and is optimized from the two-story structure right down to the servers to reflect the company’s vision for energy efficient data center operations.

Facebook Opens its Server, Data Center Designs - In a marked departure from industry practice, Facebook is disclosing the designs and specs for its new data center in Prineville, Oregon. The social network today launched the Open Compute Project, through which it is releasing the details of its energy efficient data center design, as well as its custom designs for servers, power supplies and UPS units.

Dell Plans Global Network of Cloud Data Centers - Computing giant Dell is deploying a fleet of 10 data centers around the world to host cloud computing services for customers, the company said today. The company plans to invest $1 billion to launch and market cloud offerings that will commence with email archiving and a hosted virtual desktop offering.

Report: Apple Buying Boatloads of Storage - Apple has reportedly placed large orders for storage equipment from Isilon Systems that can support 12 petabytes of scale-out storage, according to a report in a storage industry publication

Twitter’s Expansion Brings Capacity, Controversy - The recent migration for Twitter has proven to be more complicated than most, as the microblogging service wound up adding an extra data center location, causing confusion about the reasons for the change.