Who Has the Most Web Servers?

[Ca$hed]

There was a milestone buried deep within the earnings tables in this week’s first quarter results from Rackspace: the San Antonio company has become one of a select number of companies that have more than 50,000 servers. Rackspace reports that as of March 30 the company’s data centers house 50,038 servers, up from 47,518 at the end of 2008. Of the companies that publicly report their server counts, only Germany’s 1&1 Internet has more than Rackspace. Here’s a look at some of the providers with high server counts, gleaned from public reports and partial data from a recent Netcraft server count report:

* 1&1 Internet: 55,000 servers (company)
* Rackspace: 50,038 servers (company)
* The Planet: 48,500 servers (company)
* Akamai Technologies: 48,000 servers (company)
* OVH: 40,000 to 55,000 servers (company)
* SBC Communications: 29,193 servers (Netcraft)
* Verizon: 25,788 servers (Netcraft)
* Time Warner Cable: 24,817 servers (Netcraft)
* SoftLayer: 21,000 servers (company)
* AT&T: 20,268 servers (Netcraft)
* Peer1/ServerBeach: 10,277 servers (company)
* iWeb: 10,000 servers (company)




Of course, there are a number of providers who have at least 50,000 servers and don’t publish the information. Who else is in the club?

Here’s a list of companies we believe are running at least 50,000 servers:

* Google: The search giant’s server count has long been the focus of speculation. There’s a widely circulated estimate of 450,000 servers, but that number is at least three years old. If it was ever accurate, it certainly isn’t anymore, given Google’s data center building spree. Google’s recently revealed container data center holds more than 45,000 servers, and that’s a single facility built in 2005.
* Microsoft: There’s actually some numbers on Microsoft’s server count, but it’s also dated. Screen shots from the company’s data center management software suggest that Microsoft was running about 218,000 servers in mid-2008. The company’s new Chicago container farm will hold up to 300,000 servers, so the count will change rapidly when that facility is deployed.
* Amazon: It runs the world’s largest online store and one of the world’s largest cloud computing operations. Amazon says very little about its data center operations, but we know that it bought $86 million in servers from Rackable in 2008, and stores 40 billion objects in its S3 storage service.
* eBay: With more than 160 million active users between its online auction house and PayPal payment service, and 443 million users on Skype, eBay has a massive data center infrastructure. The company houses more than 8.5 petabytes of data in huge data warehouses. We’re not certain what kind of server count this requires, but it’s certainly in the 50,000 club.
* Yahoo: While its data center infrastructure isn’t quite as enormous as those for Google and Microsoft, the third major search portal likely has more than 50,000 servers in operation to support its large free hosting operation as well as its paid hosting service and Yahoo Stores.
* GoDaddy: It’s the world’s largest domain registrar with more than 35 million domains under management, but effective cross-selling of its hosting plans has also made GoDaddy one of the largest shared hosting operations in the world. It’s infrastructure is probably similar in scope to that of 1&1 Internet.
* HP/EDS: While server “ownership” is less distinct with system integrators, EDS has an enormous data center operation. Company documents (PDF) say EDS is managing 380,000 servers in 180,000 data centers. (Thanks, Bruce for the link).
* IBM: With more than 8 million square feet of data center space, IBM also houses an enormous number of servers in its data centers, both for itself and its customers.
* Facebook: Facebook says only that it has more than 10,000 servers, but it’s been saying that since April 2008 and it’s now serving 200 million users and hosting at least 40 billion photos. Facebook is clearly way beyond 10,000 servers, and it’s entirely possible that it’s now in the 50,000 server club.

[c0ldfyr3]

I used to host with 1&1 they are good, cheap and reliable