eBay have purchased land to build a new data center in South Jordan, Utah which will cost an estimated $334 million to build. The State of Utah will in return give tax breaks worth $27.3 million over a 10 year period, but tax revenue flowing into the State from eBay’s coffers in the same period is still expected to be $109 million.
The new facility to be built in Daybreak Commerce Park, is expected to create around 50 jobs paying close to $50,000 a year (plus benefits), which is around 50% higher than the average wage in the area. With the recent news that eBay are laying off around 10% of their workforce worldwide it’s great to see that they’re still investing for the future and adding to the existing US and EU datacenters.
eBay have already invested in Utah and operate a customer support center in Salt Lake, Utah with around 1600 employees including the US Top Seller Account Manager (TSAM) teams.
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Some people may wonder why eBay would build a new data center instead of expanding via “cloud services”. I sat in at a session at the QCon in San Fran given by Randy Shoup, eBay Distinguished Architect. The demand of traffic and overall computing resources is far beyond standard application requirements, and a virtual architecture based on existing outside cloud computing offerings would not be feasible.
You can find PowerPoint slides on Randy’s architecture session online, and possibly a video. I will get the link as soon as I sit down in front of my computer.
Hey Neil I’ve seen that PowerPoint deck, but I can’t remember where… it’s VERY interesting.
And why Utah and not San Jose…… Utah has a lot less earthquakes 😀
I heard a rumour that this will be run by one man and his three wives :-p