Extreme Heat in California Stops Twitter Data Center

Twitter’s data center in California was knocked offline because of extreme heat. CNN received information which says Twitter service could stop if another data center is knocked offline.

Major social media platforms like Twitter need data centers. The data centers are giant buildings full of computers, servers and storage systems. It’s important to control the temperature in these giant buildings so the computers do not become too hot.

To help keep the data centers cool, some tech companies have built them in cold areas. For example, Google has had a data center in Finland since 2011, and Meta (formally Facebook), opened one in Sweden in 2013.

Carrie Fernandez, Twitter’s vice president of engineering, said that Twitter lost its data center in Sacramento, California on September 5th because of extreme weather. Due to the high temperature, Twitter shutdown all equipment in the Sacramento data center.

Most big tech companies have multiple data centers. With multiple data centers, the companies can stay online and continue to provide service if one data center has problems.

According to Fernandez, Twitter also has data centers in Atlanta, Georgia and Portland, Oregon. If Twitter loses one of these data centers, its service might not work for all Twitter users.

Peiter Zatko, the former head of security at Twitter, is a whistleblower who says that Twitter data centers are not safe. According to him, the company does not have enough backup data centers, so it’s possible that Twitter is knocked offline for “weeks, months, or permanently.”

Twitter does not agree with Zatko’s claims.