Closer Look: Wikipedia's Internet Infrastructure

wikipedia-servers-closeup-4

A close look at some of the servers powering Wikipedia, the online encyclopedia that is the sixth-busiest web site in the world, according to Alexa. (Photo By Victorgrigas, via Wikimedia Commons)

As a non-profit running the world's sixth-busiest web destination, The Wikimedia Foundation has historically adopted a frugal approach to infrastructure. That began to change in 2010, when the foundation made reliability a priority in 2010 and shifted Wikipedia's primary data center from Tampa into space within an Equinix data center in Ashburn, Virginia. This week the foundation said it is seeking space for another U.S. data center. For a closer look at the online encyclopedia's infrastructure, check out Inside a Wikipedia Data Center, a collection of photos from inside the Wikimedia facility in Ashburn.