However, they aren’t of the deer kind. Facebook creator Mark Zuckerberg has decided that the best place to host his database would be in the icy lands most famous for reindeer and Father Christmas’ winter palace. Although, don’t get confused, it isn’t in the North Pole! It stretches over Norway, Sweden, Finland and the Kola Peninsula (a Russian area).
The decision comes after Facebook executives concluded that their current space was too small, and keeping so many databases in one area would be difficult to heat. In Lapland, the temperatures reach so low that they could simply fan the air from outside into the storage block to cool it. This would work for up to 10 months of the year. Unfortunately, the other 2 months are slightly too warm, and electric cooling would be required.
It will process data from the Middle East, Europe and Africa, and the servers will cover over 30,000 square metres! That’s just over the area of 11 football pitches! Currently, there are 800 million registered accounts on Facebook, which is approximately 2 in every 17 people having one! This means that their offices will be ever-growing, and to combat their extreme carbon emission, they are planning to use renewable energy such as solar or wind power, requiring 70% fewer generators.
Lulea, the section of Sweden in which the servers are locating to, has some of the cheapest electricity prices in Europe, and has a growing economy, which can only be boosted by Facebook’s arrival.
What do you think? Are you one of these 800 million users that could possibly have their server moved? Or is Facebook a tad overrated? Leave your thoughts below!
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