On: Scaling Facebook Chat to 70 Million Active Users Almost Overnight

[axod]

"Facebook does not disclose the number of servers it operates. But research firm Data Center Knowledge puts the tally at about 10,000. The slug of cash will help Facebook buy approximately 50,000 more servers"

60,000 servers? Jesus christ. Are they planning to scale to take account of Alien users or something?

[fendale → axod]

What I don't understand is why Facebook feels slow each time I logon with these 10K servers - its often one of the slowest sites I visit!

If they are intending to have 60K servers, they better keep a slug of that cash around to pay the electric bill!

[wmf → axod]

I realized recently that Facebook is trying to rebuild the entire Web inside their site. Home pages, check. Email, check. IM, calendaring, photo sharing, dating, check. Next they will add VoIP, photo editing, an office suite...

So how many servers do you need to replace the entire Web? 60,000 doesn't sound like enough.

[siculars → axod]

the 10k number was spilled a few weeks ago at a conference... along with numbers from some other groups like mysql and others.