These days, with the boom in mobile computing, companies need to accommodate the growth of data generated, especially when almost every company now offers some sort of cloud service.  But when it comes to datacenters it’s not just about building a facility, it’s all about building a green facility that won’t bring harm to the environment.

On Foreign Lands

Facebook is building its first datacenter outside of US soil, in Sweden at the edge of the Arctic Circle.  The social network plans on building a massive server farm in Lulea, a town in the Northern part of Sweden.  Some of the energy needed to power the said datacenter will come from energy created by the Lulea River.  The datacenter will have three large server halls and will cost $72 million a year to maintain.  It’s an eco-friendly solution that leverages the local power of nature, but it’s geographic placement also ensures better service to Facebook’s growing European user base.

IBM, on the other hand, leased Digital Realty Trust, Inc.’s Turn-Key Datacenter at 29A International Business Park in Jurong East.  Like all of Digital’s datacenters, the Turn-Key Datacenter facility is physically secured, and it features state-of-the-art power and cooling architecture optimized for green operation.

“We have a strong working relationship with Digital Realty Trust, which is founded on the flexibility and reliability of its Turn-Key Datacentre solution,” said Lilian Hwang, Country Manager for Information Technology Services at IBM Singapore. “This valuable partnership has allowed IBM to better meet the needs of customers through accelerating the deployment of new data centres while reducing capital costs.”

On US Soil

Apple plans on making their Maiden, North Carolina datacenter ‘greener’ by building a huge solar farm to supply clean energy.  Project Dolphin aims to clear out 171 acres of land by removing topsoil to grade a site opposite the new datacenter and Apple promised that their plan will not affect or block any streams in the area.  The plan has been approved, though it hasn’t pushed through since they haven’t acquired a building permit.

Another Digital Realty Trust client is Net2EZ, managed hosting provider.  Net2EZ signed a lease expansion with Digital that would allow them to use an additional 24,000 square feet of land space in their California facility.  Currently, the datacenter has 2.35 megawatts of power but the expansion would increase that to 3.9 megawatts of total capacity.

“Digital Realty’s ability to meet our technical requirements and provide a flexible solution quickly and cost effectively made expanding our operations with them an easy decision,” said Pervez Delawalla, Chief Executive Officer of Net2EZ. “We have had an excellent, long standing relationship with the Digital Realty team at this and other sites and look forward to working with them on this important project for us.”