“Given the massive amounts of electricity that even energy-efficient data centers consume to run computers, backup power units, and power related cooling equipment, the last thing we need to be doing is building them in places where they are increasing demand for dirty coal-fired power,” the group said in a statment, which was published on the Greenpeace web site and also on The Huffington Post. “Facebook and the cloud should be run on clean renewable energy … Facebook could and should be championing clean energy solutions, and not relying on the dirty fuel sources of the past to power their new data center.”

Greenpeace has urged Facebook users to join a Facebook group titled Tell Facebook to use Clean Energy for its Data Center.

“It is simply untrue to say that we chose coal as a source of power,” Facebook said in response to Greenpeace. “The suggestions of ‘choosing coal’ ignores the fact that there is no such thing as a coal-powered data center. Similarly, there is no such thing as a hydroelectric-powered data center. Every data center plugs into the grid offered by their utility or power provider.”

Here is Facebook’s updated response, in its entirety:

Overall, we’re thrilled at our choice in Oregon and that we’re challenging the industry to think creatively to meet the standards we’ve set in efficiency. As we continue to grow, we’re committed to environmental responsibility and will be seeking and evaluating more ways to minimize and offset our impact on the planet. In selecting Oregon, we chose a region that offers a uniquely dry and temperate climate. This climate enables us to design what we believe to be one of, if not the most, energy efficient data centers in the world. Specifically, most data centers use mechanical chillers or large air conditioners for part, if not all, of the year to cool the computers within the facility. These mechanical chillers use a lot of energy and are only exceeded in their energy use by the thousands of computers inside the data center. Because of the climate around Prineville and our unique design, we won’t use any mechanical chillers. None. We won’t even build any. Instead, the data center will use an innovative evaporative cooling system.

Here is an example to illustrate. Imagine two identical houses with all of the same power consumption inside (appliances, electronics, etc.) only one is cooled by a large air conditioner and the other is cooled by ceiling fans. Obviously, the house with the fans will use significantly less energy. That’s why you may get rebates from your power company when you install a ceiling fan and why our data center will use less energy to deliver our service to users. In case you’re wondering, we’ll also be using industry-leading and our own innovative technology to keep the computers themselves much more efficient than industry averages.

At the same time, it is simply untrue to say that we chose coal as a source of power. The suggestions of “choosing coal” ignores the fact that there is no such thing as a coal-powered data center. Similarly, there is no such thing as a hydroelectric-powered data center. Every data center plugs into the grid offered by their utility or power provider. The electrons powering that data center are produced by the various sources (e.g. hydro, natural gas, coal, geothermal, nuclear, etc.) the provider uses in proportions similar to the mix of sources used. That is, if 25% of the providers energy comes from natural gas, it’s a good guess that 25% of the electrons powering the facility come from that source. Even when a facility is in close proximity to an individual source of energy, such a dam or coal plant, there is no guarantee that the electrons from that source are flowing to the facility at any particular time.

It’s true that the local utility for the region we chose, Pacific Power, has an energy mix that is weighted slightly more toward coal than the national average. However, the efficiency we are able to achieve because of the climate of the region and the reduced energy usage that results minimizes our overall carbon footprint. Said differently, if we located the data center most other places, we would need mechanical chillers, use more energy, and be responsible for more overall carbon in the air—even if that location was fueled by more renewable energy.

In addition, we plan to have our data center in Prineville for a long time so when considering the sources of energy, we took a long term view. Pacific Power, the energy provider we’ll use in Oregon, has an aggressive plan for increasing their renewable energy mix. In fact, their most recent plan calls for having more than 2,000 megawatts of renewable resources by 2013. Thus, our data center is only going to get more green over time as these resources come on line and contribute even greater portions of the facility’s energy.

NOTE: The Facebook protest group has had periods in which it was unavailable, as Greenpeace notes. “If the link doesn’t work, please be patient and refresh your browser,” it says. “Our Facebook group has “mysteriously” appeared, gone down, and then back up.”

The group was offline for about 12 hours Friday, during which group founder Dietrich Muylaert accused Facebook of “undemocratic, totalitarian tactics.”

After an inquiry from Data Center Knowledge, Facebook restored the group. “This group was disabled in error and has been reactivated,” the company said. “We sincerely apologize for any inconvenience this has caused.”

One possible issue may be the steps used to promote the group. At the time the group was initally disabled, Muylaert said “there were over 3,000 invitations to join the group, send out by its members, which were not yet responded upon.” Some of these appear to have been through a lengthy series of identical tweets through Muylaert’s Twitter account, which now appear to have been deleted. If Facebook receives complaints about unsolicited emails or tweets to promote a group, it would be likely to review the group’s status.

An architectural rendering of the new Facebook data center planned for Prineville, Oregon.

Facebook has responded to growing criticism of its power choices for its new data center in Prineville, Oregon. This is one of the first cases in which a data center’s energy sourcing has attracted this kind of public attention, but it won’t be the last.  

Earlier this month we noted a report that Facebook’s new Oregon data center, which has been designed to be highly energy-efficient, would be getting its power from a local utility that uses coal to generate the majority of its power. This news, initially reported by SearchDataCenter, has been getting attention from environmental groups and green blogs. The issue was highlighted on TreeHugger and Change.org, and has even led to the creation of a Facebook group (Tell Facebook to use Clean Energy for its Data Center).

Facebook’s Response 
Yesterday Facebook responded via our comment section on the original post, with a statement from spokesperson Lee Weinstein. Since Facebook has taken its lumps on this issue, I felt its response should get equal visibility. Here’s Weinstein’s comment:

I’m writing on behalf of Facebook to share their response to the issues you’ve posed. Most electrical commercial and residential power in the United States comes from a variety of sources. Our new data center will be receiving our power through PacifiCorp, which like most utilities has a diverse generation portfolio including hydro, geothermal, wind and coal. PacifiCorp is now the #1 utility owner operator of renewables, having grown their portfolio 2,400 percent over the past three years.

When it comes online in early 2011, the new Facebook data center will also be one of the most energy efficient in the world, featuring an innovative cooling system created for the unique climate characteristics in Prineville, Oregon.

The new, world class energy-efficiency technologies the Facebook data center will utilize include an evaporative cooling system; an airside economizer that will bring colder air in from the outside; re-use of server heat to warm office space in the colder months; and new patent pending highly efficient electrical design will reduce electricity usage by up to 12 percent. The entire facility will be built to LEED Gold standards.

The State of Oregon has a very aggressive Renewable Portfolio Standard, calling for 25 percent of power in the state to be produced by renewable resources by 2025. Facebook believes this policy will ensure continued growth of renewable generation resources. Facebook’s commitment is, regardless of generation source, to use electricity as wisely and as efficiently as possible.”

I’ll circle back to our commentary on the original post: “This is a good example of the ‘clean vs. cheap’ dilemma faced by data centers with massive power requirements. Companies like Google and Facebook want to be as green as possible, but must also control costs. The economics of on-site generation of using wind or solar power still don’t add up for most providers. That means the best way to use more renewable energy in the data center is to buy it from the utility company.” Sometimes that’s not as easy as you’d think, even in Oregon.

The irony is that companies like Facebook, which make energy efficiency a priority and are open about their interest in sustainability, are held to a higher standard when it comes to energy sourcing. We’ve previously noted Facebook’s focus on efficiency in the leasing and design of its data centers:

• Facebook Goes Green With New Data Center Space: The breakout growth of Facebook is turning out to be an economic stimulus plan for data center landlords. And the fast-growing social network’s infrastructure isn’t just getting bigger, it’s getting greener, with a focus on LEED Gold or Platinum facilities.
• Facebook Follows Google to Data Center Savings: Facebook says it’s streamlining its servers, and also plans to adopt a novel power distribution design pioneered by Google.
• It’s Official: Facebook is Oregon’s ‘Company X’: Facebook says the 147,000 square foot Prineville data center will be designed to LEED Gold standards and is expected to have a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.15.

Google to Face Similar Scrutiny
Another company bearing the weight of high expectations is Google, whose actions are often viewed through the prism of the ”don’t be evil” sentiment expressed by its founders. The company’s sourcing of power for its data centers is likely to come under similar scrutiny. Major media outlets are increasingly interested in Google’s energy use in its data centers, including how much it’s using and how “green” that power is.

Google is open about its interest in both data center efficiency and sustainability, and its foundation has made significant investments in wind, solar and geothermal power. But the company hasn’t been forthcoming about how much electricity its data centers use, and the media’s efforts to fill in the blanks can easily go awry. A recent example: the wild-ass guess by The Wall Street Journal that Google’s energy use was “roughly equivalent to the output of two large conventional power plants.”

Google has made enormous investments in building what it believes are the world’s most efficient data centers. Other media outlets are taking a hard look at Google’s energy use, and whether it is aligned with its commitment to sustainability. Will Google wait to let others characterize its data center energy use, or disclose more about its current power usage and sourcing and the company’s plans to make it more sustainable over time?

An architectural rendering of the new Facebook data center planned for Prineville, Oregon.

Facebook’s first company-built data center will be in Prineville, Oregon, the company confirmed today. The new facility will be among the most energy efficient in the industry, Facebook said, and will provide the social network with headroom for its fast-growing server and storage infrastructure.

As we noted yesterday (Facebook to Build Its Own Data Centers), the fast-growing social network has previously leased server space from wholesale data center providers, but has grown to the point where the economics favor a shift to a custom-built infrastructure.

LEED Gold, PUE of 1.15
Facebook says the 147,000 square foot Prineville data center will be designed to LEED Gold standards and is expected to have a Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) rating of 1.15.

“After a rigorous review process of sites across the West Coast, Facebook concluded that Prineville offered the best package of resources – including a suitable climate for environmental cooling, renewable power resources, available land, talented regional workforce and supportive business environment,” said Tom Furlong, Director of Site Operations for Facebook.

Facebook also left open the possibility that it will build more than one data center in Prineville. “Additional construction phases may be possible in the future, depending on business needs,” according to a press release issued by the state of Oregon.

A Long Way from a Single Server
Facebook’s extraordinary growth has forced the company to continually invest in its infrastructure.

“We have come a long way from our roots in a Harvard dorm room, when Facebook was only available at some colleges and run on a single server,” said Jonathan Heiliger, Facebook’s vice president of technical operations, in a blog post. “When Facebook first began with a small group of people using it and no photos or videos to display, the entire service could run on a single server.

“Now with more than 350 million people worldwide and our service and business continuing to grow, we must constantly scale our technical infrastructure to meet the demand and deliver you a fast, reliable experience,” said Heiliger. “An important step along the way is to build a custom data center so that we can design it to meet our unique needs.”

The social network has previously expanded by leasing space from “wholesale” data center landlords,including Digital Realty Trust, DuPont Fabros Technologies and Fortune Data Centers.

More Cost, But More Customization
Other huge Internet companies that build their own data centers include Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay and Oracle. This typically requires a larger up-front investment in construction and equipment, but allows greater customization of power and cooling infrastructure.

The Prineville data center will use evaporative cooling instead of a chiller system, continuing a trend towards chiller-less data centers and water conservation. “This process is highly energy efficient and minimizes water consumption by using outside air,” said Heiliger.

The facility will also re-use excess heat expelled by servers, which will help heat office space in the building, a strategy also being implemented by Telehouse and IBM.

Novel UPS Design
The new design foregoes traditional uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and power distribution units (PDUs) and adds a 12 volt battery to each server power supply. This approach was pioneered by Google, which last year revealed a custom server that integrates a 12 volt battery, which the company cited this design as a key factor in the exceptional energy efficiency data for its data centers.

Facebook did not say how much it expected to spend on the project, which is expected to create more than 200 jobs during its 12-month construction phase, and will employ at least 35 full-time workers and dozens more part-time and contract employees. Those jobs are welcomed by Oregon officials.

Excitement in Prineville
“This is great news for Prineville and really the entire state,” said Gov. Ted Kulongoski. “The stable, family-wage jobs and economic stimulus they will provide to this area during construction are a bright spot as this nation and this state climb out of this recession.”

“I thank Facebook for choosing Oregon and am hopeful this decision will act as a big “open for business sign” for other companies in this quickly growing field,” said Kulongoski. “This is a great example of how the public and private sector work together to create economic opportunity for Oregon communities.”

Here’s a look at some of our past coverage of the growth of Facebook’s infrastructure:

• Facebook Follows Google to Data Center Savings: Facebook says it’s streamlining its servers, and also plans to adopt a novel power distribution design pioneered by Google.
• Facebook Goes Green With New Data Center Space: The breakout growth of Facebook is turning out to be an economic stimulus plan for data center landlords. And the fast-growing social network’s infrastructure isn’t just getting bigger, it’s getting greener.
• Facebook Makes Big Investment in Data Centers: The company has just locked down a large chunk of data center space in northern Virginia that will provide room for thousands of additional servers for growth in 2011 and beyond.
• Facebook: Managing Epic Growth in Real-Time: CTO Jonathan Heiliger presents an overview of Facebook’s back-end operations at the Velocity 2009 conference in June.
• Facebook Spending $20 Million a Year on Data Centers: An analysis of Facebook’s data center leases as of May 2009.
• A Look Inside Facebook’s Data Center: A recruitment video provides a glimpse inside the server-packed racks and aisles of a Facebook data center.
• Facebook Expanding Its Data Centers, Again: In early 2009 the company leased additional space in its East Coast hub in Ashburn, Virginia.
• Facebook Pushes Limits on Memcached: Caching is key to massive web scalabilty. Here’s how Facebook is extending a popular caching technology.

A sketch of the entrance of the new Facebook data center in Prineville, Oregon.

A look at the fully-packed racks inside a Facebook data center facility.

Facebook has decided to begin building its own data centers, and may announce its first facility as soon as tomorrow. The fast-growing social network has previously leased server space from wholesale data center providers, but has grown to the point where the economics favor a shift to a custom-built infrastructure.

“Facebook is always looking at ways to scale our infrastructure and better serve our users,” said Facebook spokesperson Kathleen Loughlin said last week. “It should come as no surprise that, at some point, building a customized data center will be the most efficient and cost effective way to to do this. However, we have nothing further to announce at this time.”

UPDATE: Facebook has confirmed that it will build a 147,000 square foot data center project in Prineville, Oregon.

Not Google or Yahoo
The data center is being built by Vitesse LLC on behalf of an unidentified tenant. But Vitesse has said Company X is not either Google or Yahoo. Data center industry chatter suggests the tenant is a large social networking site – which usually means Facebook.

Facebook’s move to build its own data centers was foreshadowed by its plans to implement custom servers and an innovative power path design, which will allow the company to reduce the energy loss during power distribution from the current 35 percent to about 15 percent.

Designed for Efficiency
The new design foregoes traditional uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and power distribution units (PDUs) and adds a 12 volt battery to each server power supply. This approach was pioneered by Google, which last year revealed a custom server that integrates a 12 volt battery, which the company cited this design as a key factor in the exceptional energy efficiency data for its data centers.

Facebook’s extraordinary growth has forced the company to continually invest in its infrastructure. The social network, which recently crossed the 350 million user barrier, has expanded by leasing space from “wholesale” data center landlords,including Digital Realty Trust, DuPont Fabros Technologies and Fortune Data Centers.

Since the beginning of 2009, Facebook has signed two leases for additional space in the ACC5 data center in Ashburn, Virginia operated by DuPont Fabros. The company has also added a data center in Santa Clara operated by Digital Realty, and from Fortune down the road in San Jose.

Switch From Wholesale Approach
Wholesale providers build the data center, including the raised-floor rechnical space and the power and cooling infrastructure, and then lease the completed facility. The tenant pays a significant premium over typical leases for office space, but is spared the large capital investment to construct the data center. This has positioned Facebook to continue growing rapidly without having to build its own facilities.

But Facebook has now decided to join the club of huge Internet companies that build their own data centers, a group which includes Google, Microsoft, Yahoo, eBay and Oracle. This typically requires a larger up-front investment in construction and equipment, but allows greater customization of power and cooling infrastructure.

The Appeal of Hydro Power
The Prineville site is several hours from an existing Google data center in The Dalles and a Boardman site where Amazon is said to be resuming construction on a major data center project. The Prineville site is located near the Prineville Airport in an enterprise zone, which allows the city to waive property taxes for eligible projects.

The project is the latest indicator of the growing appeal of the Pacific northwest as a destination for companies seeking the lowest operating costs for their data centers. The region’s abundant supply of affordable hydro power is a major factor in its appeal, as are tax incentives like the tax exemption being discussed in Prineville.

Jeff Rothschild, the vice president of technology at Facebook, said in a recent presentation that Facebook has 230 engineers supporting data for more than 300 million users. He says Facebook seeks to maintain a ratio of one engineer for 1 million or more users. Facebook is vague about exactly how many servers it has, saying it’s “more than 30,000.” But 30,000 servers and 230 engineers works out to a ratio of about 130 servers per admin.

Microsoft says it has automated its data center operations to the point where its admins can each manage between 1,000 and 2,000 servers. That matters, as the company may pack more than 300,000 servers into its new container data center in Chicago. It expects to support that facility with about 30 employees, including admins and facility maintenance staff.

Facebook recently disclosed its plans to adopt a novel power distribution design pioneered by Google that removes uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and power distribution units (PDUs) from the data center. The new design shifts the UPS and battery backup functions from the data center into the cabinet by adding a 12 volt battery to each server power supply.

While many best practices shared by Google, Microsoft and Facebook can help other data center operators save energy and money, other customizations are impractical.   

Big Companies, Big Innovation 
“A lot of the innovation in the field is being driven by companies with thousands of servers who really care about the efficiency of these things,” said Facebook’s Amir Michael, who previously worked on Google’s data center team. “We have capital to be able to afford engineers to solve these problems. It’s not really benefiting the rest of the industry. Smaller companies who might deploy fewer servers can’t go and design their own systems.”

In discussing Facebook’s plans for on-board batteries, Michael discussed ways these innovations might become more widely available.

“It’s a chicken and the egg problem,” said Michael. “No one really makes a data center without a UPS, and no one makes server with a battery on board. Server manufacturers aren’t going to build a server with a battery on board, because no one has a place to deploy that.”

Facebook’s buying power gives it some influence with hardware vendors. Michael noted that Facebook is working with vendors on power supply customizations, and has gotten little pushback from server vendors on its modifications to motherboards.

“Volumes are large enough that server vendors are helping us with that rather than opposing us,” he said. “We’re actually being supported quite well.”

Not all equipment vendors would endorse an industry shift to servers with on-board batteries, however. Makers of UPS equipment and power distribution units (PDUs) are significant players in discussions of industry best practices, and would be unlikely to advocate designs that reduce demand for those products.

Is there a transition that could lead to more options for innovation in power distribution? Michael suggested potential changes in wholesale data center leasing models.

“One example could be to build a data center where you have a portion that has no UPS,” he said. ”The data center operator can charge customers a lower rate to deploy their servers in a part of the facility that doesn’t have a UPS. The customer, if they’re savvy, can go and purchase a server which has a battery on board. They’ll pay a little more up front, but in the long run they’ll save money because they’re paying less to operate that server over a period of time.

“We hope to see the industry move to a model like this,” said Michael. ”As a customer that leases space in data centers, I would welcome a change like this.”

Facebook is one of the largest customers in the market for turn-key data center space, and leases space from leading providers like Digital Realty Trust, DuPont Fabros Technology and Fortune Data Centers. 

Are these cutting-edge energy efficiency strategies only appropriate for large-scale operations like Google and Facebook? Or would enterprises and smaller companies adopt these practices if they had access to them? Facebook says it will be more active in the growing industry conversation about best practices, which it hopes will reveal the answer.  

“It’s no longer okay just to be secretive,” said Michael. “There’s too much at stake.  Smaller companies might use too much of their resources and too much of their capital on their data center infrastructure. They should be allowed to benefit from the same type of optimizations that we’re making here at Facebook.”

A graphic of the new data center power distribution system being implemented at Facebook, which replaces a central UPS with a battery built into the power supply.

Facebook is stepping up its efforts to make its data centers cheaper and more efficient, and is following in the footsteps of Google in several of its key initiatives. Facebook says it’s streamlining its servers, and also plans to adopt a novel power distribution design pioneered by Google.

The social network’s plans were discussed by Amir Michael, a server and data center engineer at Facebook, in a Nov. 17 engineering Tech Talk in Palo Alto, Calif. Michael joined Facebook in March after six years on the data center team at Google, where he designed cooling and electrical systems.

“The industry has discussed many ways of optimizing servers and data centers,” Michael said. “We don’t claim to be the original thought leader on many of these things, but we are gonna be one of the few companies who’s actually going to begin implementing them.”

Shift to On-Board Battery
That’s true of the most significant change outlined by Michael: a new power distribution design that removes traditional uninterruptible power supply (UPS) and power distribution units (PDUs) from the data center. The new design shifts the UPS and battery backup functions from the data center into the cabinet, adding a 12 volt battery to each server power supply.

In April, Google revealed its use of a power supply that integrates a 12 volt battery, allowing it to function as an on-board UPS. The company cited this design as a key factor in the exceptional energy efficiency data it has reported for its data centers, including Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE) ratings between 1.1 and 1.2.

Major Efficiency Gains
Facebook says it expects to gain similar efficiency benefits, reducing the energy loss during power distribution from the current 35 percent to about 15 percent. The company said it can lower its power bill by simplifying how electricity travels to its servers. 

In most data centers, a UPS system stands between the utility power grid and the data center equipment. When there is a grid outage, the UPS taps a large bank of batteries (or in some cases, a flywheel) for “ride-through” power until the generator can be started. The AC power from the grid is converted into DC power to charge the batteries, and then converted back to AC for the equipment.

Saving on Equipment
In addition to improving efficiency, the new design could yield enormous savings on equipment purchases. “You no longer need to buy a traditional UPS and PDU system,” said Michael. “On the capex side, it’s a huge win. This can save millions of dollars that you no longer have to spend on a UPS system. We hope to see the industry move to a model like this.”

Facebook’s enormous growth is clearly giving it leverage with its vendors, which are working with the company as it customizes its equipment. An example: typical servers use 208 volt power to the servers. Most power supplies can also support the 230 volt and 240 volt configurations now being implemented to capture extra efficiency.

Facebook’s new distribution scheme calls for 277 volt power to the servers. ”We’re working with power supply vendors to create a (server) power supply that will accept 277 volts on the input,” said Michael. 

Stripped-Down Servers
Michael said Facebook is also stripping down servers, noting that most servers are tailored for enterprise customers, and include cosmetic features and extras that can impede air flow for cooling. 

“I would prefer to have an ugly server,” said Michael. “An ugly server is a beautiful server because I paid less money for it. We can remove a lot of connectors and a lot of cost from the motherboard itself. This can come in the form of removing video cards, removing extra disk connectors we don’t need, (and) removing PCIe connectors which really don’t provide us with any functionality.”

Few Details on Timeline
Michael didn’t provide details on Facebook’s progress in implementing these new approaches, but the power distribution plans were discussed in the future tense. Michael also outlined the company’s plans to make greater use of free cooling, which uses fresh air rather than chilled water to cool servers. Facebook is known to be using free cooling in at least one of its data centers.

Facebook also said it intends to raise the temperature in its data centers, a strategy that expands the number of hours in which you can use free cooling. This is a strategy that is being widely implemented by large data center users, including Google. “Because we’re taking more ownership of our server design, we can now design it in a way which allows us to raise the temperature in the data center,” Michael said.

RELATED STORIES:

• Efficient UPS Aids Google’s Extreme PUE
• Facebook Goes Green with New Data Centers
• Facebook Now Has 30,000 Servers
• How Facebook Serves Up 30 Million Users

• Force 10 demonstrates at Interop. Force 10 Networks partnered with AFORE Solutions and Sun Microsystems at INTEROP in New York last week to demonstrate data center virutalization products and cloud computing initiatives focused on driving greater network agility. The 3 vendors demonstrated virtualized resource allocation for cloud-oriented applications as well as the AFORE ASE3300 Virutalization Extension Platform.  The ASE3300 and Force 10 switch and router solutions combine to enable a multi-site, virtual data center enabling migration to cloud computing environments.
• Avocent upgrades data center management software. Announced at Interop last week, Avocent is upgrading its MergePoint Infrastructure Explorer to include several new management capabilities.  The company said these enhancements will provide a unique view into capacity planning, bringing additional return on investment and total cost of ownership benefits.  Avocent CTO Ben Grimes said that the software will allow “customers to know where their assets are, as well as plan for different ‘what if’ scenarios, and manage their data centers to reduce risk -  all while bringing improved ROI and total cost of ownership benefits to customers.”  New features include rack timeline and an enhanced change management and capacity search capabilities.

• Deutsche Telekom Buys Strato: Deutsche Telekom has acquired German web hosting provider Strato from Freenet, the companies said on Friday. Deutsche Telekom reportedly paid $409 million for Strato, which hosts 4 million domains, “This step boosts our position on the highly interesting market for hosting solutions,” said Niek Jan van Damme, Member of the Board of Management of Deutsche Telekom for fixed-network and mobile business in Germany. “Strato complements our activities in the hosting area perfectly and will make a positive contribution to net profit and free cash flow from the very first day of consolidation,” said van Damme.
• Social Networks: Facebook, Twitter, MySpace. Several news stories shed light on popular Web 2.0 sites last week.  Bloomberg estimates that common stock valuation for Facebook jumped 42% in the past four months to $9.5 billion.  The valuation comes after increased trading activity on stock service sites that allow current and former employees to sell shares of stock. Twitter COO Dick Costolo spoke at a conference last week and said that Twitter is getting more than $4 million a year in revenue from companies that use Twitter data.  Costolo also said that “you will see an advertising strategy from us in the very near future.” Cnet News reports that MySpace has aquired social-networking music site Imeem. Sources with knowledge of the deal say it is worth $8 million.
• Meanwhile, original web power-house company AOL has cut local headcount in northern Virginia by 2,400.

The breakout growth of Facebook is turning out to be an economic stimulus plan for data center landlords. And the fast-growing social network’s infrastructure isn’t just getting bigger, it’s getting greener. 

Facebook has confirmed that it has leased additional data center space in San Jose, Calif. in a new facility operated by Fortune Data Centers. This is the fourth data center expansion of 2009 for Facebook, which has signed two leases for additional data center space in Virginia and two more in Silicon Valley.

All LEED Gold Data Centers
All four of the leases are in facilities designed to attain the highest energy efficiency ratings under the LEED (Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design) program operated by the U.S. Green Building Council. Each of the data centers hosting Facebook’s servers are on track for Gold certification under the LEED rating scale. 

As with most companies seeking out LEED data centers, Facebook’s motivations are financial as well as environmental. The social network’s racks are packed with servers, and efficient  data centers allow them to do more with the same square footage.

The latest lease in San Jose is reported to be a deal for about 5 megawatts of critical power. “We can confirm that we have signed an agreement, but we cannot disclose the specifics,” Facebook said in a statement. “We are always looking at ways to add data center capacity to support our growing business.”

Pursuing Wholesale Model
Facebook’s extraordinary growth has forced the company to invest in its infrastructure. The social network, which recently crossed the 300 million user barrier, has expanded by leasing space from the two largest “wholesale” data center landlords, the real estate investment trusts Digital Realty Trust and DuPont Fabros Technologies.

Since the beginning of 2009, Facebook has signed two leases for additional space in the ACC5 data center in Ashburn, Virginia operated by DuPont Fabros. The company has also added a data center in Santa Clara operated by Digital Realty, and now has leased space from Fortune down the road in San Jose.

Wholesale providers build the data center, including the raised-floor rechnical space and the power and cooling infrastructure, and then lease the completed facility. The tenant pays a significant premium over typical leases for office space, but is spared the capital investment to construct the data center.

Wholesale Model Means Savings
In the wholesale model, users can also occupy their data center space in about five months, rather than the one to two years needed to build an enterprise data center. This has positioned Facebook to continue growing rapidly without having to build its own facilities.

The San Jose lease allowed Fortune to fill its available space within six months of opening the doors. Fortune has now begun construction on the second phase, which will add another 6 megawatts of power capacity.

Focus on Efficiency
Fortune Data Centers’ energy efficiency features include a design that uses a slab floor and drops cool air into the data center from above, taking advantage of the natural tendency for denser cool air to fall while warm air rises.

Fortune also separated the hot and cold air with vinyl curtains between the top of the racks and the ceiling, preventing warm air from mixing back in with cool air for the servers. The facility employs water-side economization and highly-efficient cooling towers, as well as an advanced building management system to monitor and manage environmental conditions.

The growth of the Internet and mobile technology have been good for Halloween. This weekend, many of us will use the cameras in our mobile phones to snap photos of our friends and/or kids in their Halloweeen costumes, and then upload them to Facebook. This trend has made Halloween the Super Bowl for online photo storage, and one of the busiest days of the year for the Facebook web site.

“Our users go all out to capture the zany costumes and freewheeling spirit, typically uploading about 20% more photos than usual during Halloween week,” Facebook engineer Doug Beaver noted last year. “That can include several daily spikes that are more than double normal levels.”

Last year Facebook said it added “20 percent more photo servers and 50 percent more upload servers” to process Halloween traffic, adding up to an additional 40 terabytes (that’s 40,000,000,000,000 bytes) of storage. That was when the site had 140 million users, less than half its current active user base of more than 300 million.

Just for giggles, add live streaming of a Foo Fighters concert via the group’s Facebook page. Looks like there will be plenty of servers humming and lights flashing in Facebook’s data centers this weekend.

Cool Halloween image from Hanna Howarth via Flickr.