Twitter reported to have made massive data centre investment in Atlanta
Fri 19 Sep 2014
Short-form media giant Twitter is reported to be making a substantial investment in new data centre facilities in Atlanta. The new capacity will augment the company’s existing rack-space at the Atlanta Metro data centre and is provided by Quality Technology Services (QTS).
The increased capacity will benefit Twitter users on the East Coast and in Europe. Although the company’s 230 million users are dwarfed by the 1bn+ Facebook user-base, Twitter is actively investing in the future, with acquisitions this year including video-sharing startup SnappyTV in June, e-commerce company Cardspring in July and password security company Mitro in August.
The San Francisco-based social network reportedly took up residence in Atlanta Metro in 2011, with a 50,000-square-feet investment that led to the purchase of an additional 100,000 square feet the following year. Unlike rival social networks Twitter has never vaunted the location or details of its data centre infrastructure, although it is rumoured to have had substantial capacity at the RagingWire data centre campus in Sacramento since 2010.
This month the company announced the pending launch of a ‘Buy’ button feature within the Twitter network, anticipating Apple’s entry into the micro-purchase market with Apple Pay.
Atlanta ranks among the top rising locations for data centres in the United States, with competitive power rates – undercutting New Yorks’s by 50% – and excellent network coverage and throughput, an environment which has also attracted the likes of Digital Realty and Google. North Carolina’s Peak 10 announced this month the opening of its third data centre in Atlanta, while zColo, A subsidiary of Zayo, acquired the data centre AtlantaNAP in July. The Atlanta area has respectable placement in the list of internet exchange points, with a throughput of 161Gbits on the Telx Internet Exchange, which also includes New York and Phoenix, Arizona.
Neither Twitter nor QTS would comment on the reports.
