Businesses today run on the Internet, and the Internet runs on data centers. Today, data centers might be more accurately called business centers.
Data centers drive nearly every aspect of many businesses, especially ones with a significant online presence like Facebook. But data centers are significant users of expensive electricity to cool their servers, and they make a significant contribution to pollution and global warming. Cloud data center operators are using a variety of new techniques to become more efficient in their use of electricity.  

 To manage this demand, Facebook has 17 data centers around the world. Facebook has chosen locations that allow it to use environmental factors (such as cooling water from rivers, and cooler northern climates) to reduce the costs of cooling computers and to minimize their carbon footprint. Each location consumes roughly 30 megawatts of electricity. To ensure 100% uptime of the flagship Facebook site, each site has backup power. For example, the Oregon location has 14 diesel generators capable of 3 megawatts apiece in case of a power generation.

 

1. Why does Facebook's data center specialist argue that "The Internet is not a cloud?"
2. What are some of the techniques Facebook uses to cool its data centers?
3. Facebook had 2.7 billion users as of 2020. If Facebook continues to employ engineers at the same rate as stated in the video, how many engineers does Facebook have?

Answer rating: 100% (QA)

1 The Internet is not a cloud The specialist may argue that the term cloud can be misleading While u... View the full answer