Is China’s Qzone Bigger Than Facebook?

Is China's Qzone (pictured above) the largest social network and blog host?

Last week there was a report that Chinese social networking service Qzone had grown to 200 million users, which would make it the world’s largest social network, surpassing Facebook’s total of 175 million users. Among the reported 200 million users, about 150 million are posting blogs and sharing photos, adding 9.5 million blog posts and 60 million photos per day, according to one summary.

Are those numbers accurate? The reportwas based on statistics from TenCent, the Chinese company that owns Qzone and the associated QQ instant messenger.

One independent survey suggests Qzone is already larger than MySpace, but remains silent on the larger question of whether the Chinese portal challenges Facebook in size. Netcraft has just begun tracking Qzone in its monthly web server survey, and finds 20 million Qzone blogs under the QQ domain, a total that “instantly makes the company the largest blog site provider in the survey, surpassing the likes of Windows Live Spaces, Blogger and MySpace.”

Yahoo Japan Buys Data Centers for Cloud Push

Yahoo Japan Corp. will pay $478 million (45 billion yen) to acquire Softbank IDC Solutions Corp., which operates nine data centers in Japan, including several supporting Yahoo Japan’s operations. Yahoo Japan cited growing demand for data center services, the rising volume of data and video content, and the need for additional infrastructure to support a planned push into cloud computing.

“Yahoo Japan is considering full-fledged entry into cloud computing and open platforms including SaaS which are expanding worldwide in the next generation Internet business domain (and) sees the need to establish a strategic base for the data center business,” the company said in a statement.

Carbonite Opens Data Center in China

Online backup provider Carbonite Inc. has opened a data center in Beijing to establish a foothold in the Chinese market, the company said this morning. The company said the facility will eventually support “millions of users.”

“China presents a very big opportunity in online backup,” said David Friend, co-founder and CEO of Carbonite. “But it’s also a market that requires a substantial commitment of resources to be successful. To succeed in this market, we felt it was essential to have a physical presence in China, so we picked Beijing as the site for our first China data center. Having a data center in China allows us to be closer to our Chinese partners, and it allows Carbonite to provide far superior backup performance for everyone in the country.”

Indian IT Hub Bangalore Hit By Bombings

The Indian IT hub Bangalore has been hit by a series of seven bombings this morning, which have killed one person and injured others. Bangalore is the capital of India’s outsourcing industry and home to more than 1,500 top firms, including Infosys Technologies and Wipro. Many U.S. tech firms also have significant operations there, including Intel, Microsoft and HP.

Om Malik at GigaOm reflects on the implications of the Bangalore bombings for the IT industry:

Despite the breakneck growth, the city in Southern India was viewed as a laid back and progressive place, devoid of the terrorist activity that had pockmarked India’s major destinations such as Delhi and Bombay. Today all that changed. … It’s not clear who might be behind these terrorist attacks, but one thing is clear, this is going to have an impact on Silicon Valley and U.S. companies. Bangalore has become integral to Silicon Valley’s life, as indicated by the packed flights that go directly into the city.

Will the bombings have a chilling effect on Bangalore’s IT industry? It’s too early to say how these events will resonate in the data center industry, where risk reduction plays a large role in the selection of sites and providers.

Prior to the bombings, the leading concern in Bangalore had been a shortage of diesel fuel. Many data centers in Bangalore rely upon diesel generators as their primary power because of the unreliability of local power supplies. HP’s new data center in Bangalore is supported by generators.

Rumor Patrol: Huge Chinese Cloud Data Center?

Reuven Cohen, the CTO of cloud platform provider Enomaly, discusses several interesting rumors on his ElasticVapor blog (link via John Rath). Reuven cites “multiple credible sources” on these, but notes that they’re still rumors, to take with the usual grain of salt. This one is new:

I also got wind of a Chinese cloud project rumored to be currently in development “under a hydro dam” which when complete may exceed one million servers.

This sounds like a different project than the new data center in Guangzhou we wrote about in May.

Reuven also mentions Microsoft’s developer-focused cloud computing project code-named Red Dog. LiveSide unearthed some information about Red Dog back in April, based on a job listing which described the platform and mentioned a first version for external customers “in the coming year.” While this sounds like it’s still some way off, Cohen notes that “a Microsoft cloud could pose a serious threat for any companies looking to build their own Windows-based cloud offerings.”

Digital Beijing: The Olympic Data Center

Digital Beijing, the data center for the 2008 Olympics, is one of the most interesting pieces of data center architecture you’re ever likely to see. The enormous building spans 1.05 million square feet (98,000 square meters) and has been designed to resemble a huge integrated circuit board when viewed from the side, and a bar code when viewed from either end. The design was the result of an international competition won by Chinese architects Studio Pei-zhu. Plans call for the building to be lit in a spectacular fashion during the Games in August (see the image above, an artist’s rendition from Studio Pei-zhu), and seems likely to become a familiar image during TV coverage of the Games, which begin on August 8.

The building is 11 stories high, towering 187 feet above Olympic Park. Here’s an actual picture of the building’s exterior:

Digital Beijing will provide communication, information security and IT services during the Olympic Games, and then be used by the Beijing municipal government’s data storage and emergency-response command.

The facility has a rainwater collection system and uses LED lighting that can reduce energy use for lighting by 60 percent. Here’s more on the concept for the facility’s design, from the architect:

The concept for Digital Beijing was developed through reconsideration and reflection on the role of contemporary architecture in the information era. Resembling that omnipresent symbol, the bar code, the building emerges from a serene water surface. The fa

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Large Data Center Opens in China

A large new data center is open for business in a technology park near Guangzhou, China. China Telecom and Guangzhou Tianhe Software Park have jointly developed Asia-Pacific Information Engine, which opened for business on May 17.

Asia-Pacific Information Engine covers a total area of 16,000 square meters (about 172,000 square feet) and involves an investment of up to $58 million, according to China Tech News. The facility has space for more than 30,000 client host computers and provides 320GB of bandwidth.

Guangzhou is the capital of Guangdong Province in the southern part of China, and was once known as Canton. The city has a population of 6 million.

Salesforce.com Plans Singapore Data Center

Salesforce.com (CRM) is building its first international data center in Singapore, the company said today. The data center, which is expected to go live before the end of year, will service the rapidly growing international customer base for Salesforce.com, a leading provider of Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) applications and hosting.

Salesforce.com also announced plans to establish a Network Operations Center (NOC) in Singapore to implement 24×7, follow-the-sun monitoring of the company’s data centers in North America and Singapore. To support this, it is investing in additional facilities and headcount at its Asia Pacific headquarters.

“The decision to build our first data center outside of the U.S. is clear evidence that companies globally are abandoning the failed client-server software model and are looking for a new model that allows them to focus on innovation as opposed to infrastructure,” said Marc Benioff, chairman and CEO, Salesforce.com.