almost all pre-ipo app start-ups rely on 3rd party hosting and cloud outfits such as akamai to maintain their virtual data center. when they get too big too fast, performance and reliability becum issues. building their own data centers costs big bucks, and they typically have to wait for ipo to build and expand. apple, already a public listed company, did that with itunes initially, but now they own huge data centers to support both itunes and icloud. same with fb. fb is building humongous data centers all over the u.s. map. google started off with their own "green" solutions, and now most of their data centers are close to hydro-electric and solar generator plants. they use an excellent concept of "containerization" of cpu's to isolate and ventilate heat separately from the ambience of the data warehouse. all other data centers use tremendous aircon power room-wise or ambient-wise to cool off cabinets and racks, which is not very eco-friendly.