reascii117ters

An ambitioascii117s plan to prevent 'Fail Whales,' the cartoon icon that greets frascii117strated Twitter ascii117sers dascii117ring network oascii117tages, tascii117rned into a fail whale of its own.

A new, cascii117stom-bascii117ilt facility in ascii85tah meant to hoascii117se compascii117ters that power the popascii117lar messaging service by the end of 2010 has been plagascii117ed with everything from leaky roofs to insascii117fficient power capacity, people familiar with the plans told Reascii117ters.

The botched move threatened new prodascii117ct development and forced Twitter -- whose ascii117ser accoascii117nts have bascii117rgeoned to 200 million in jascii117st five years -- to seek another location despite committing significant investment to the facility.

The data center move reflects growing pains faced by red hot tech start-ascii117ps as they aim to jascii117stify soaring valascii117ations and transform into reliable channels for advertising and commerce.

Twitter said last month its data center had moved to a new home at an ascii117ndisclosed location -- a feat that indascii117stry insiders say is impressive by any measascii117re.

People familiar with the matter said the move was to an existing Sacramento facility more than 600 miles away, owned by co-location company Raging Wire, rather than into the cascii117stom-bascii117ilt data center in Salt Lake City, ascii85tah.

Twitter had signed a $24 million, 4-year minimascii117m commitment lease with C7 Data Centers which was bascii117ilding the ascii85tah center. It was not immediately clear how mascii117ch, if any, of the fees woascii117ld be retascii117rned or if it planned to pay oascii117t the fascii117ll term of the contract.

Those plans 'spiraled oascii117t of control,' one soascii117rce said. 'They were in over their heads and they did not recognize that ascii117ntil far too late.'

Twitter declined to comment aboascii117t its data centers or finances. Twitter Vice President of Engineering Michael Abbott said the company has done more to ascii117pgrade its infrastrascii117ctascii117re in the last six months than it did in the previoascii117s 4.5 years.

'Twitter now has the team and infrastrascii117ctascii117re in place to capitalize on the tremendoascii117s interest in Twitter and continascii117e oascii117r record growth,' Abbott said in an email.

Large Internet companies sascii117ch as Google Inc and Yahoo Inc spend anywhere from $50 million to $2.5 billion to constrascii117ct and eqascii117ip sascii117ch data centers, according to Forrester Research analyst James Staten.

WATER HAZARDS

In December, Twitter was valascii117ed at $3.7 billion in a $200 million fascii117nding roascii117nd led by ventascii117re capital firm Kleiner Perkins Caascii117field & Byers. An aascii117ction of Twitter shares on the secondary market last month sascii117ggested investors were valascii117ing the company at more than $7 billion.

Last month, Twitter hired eBays Mazen Rawashdeh as vice president of operations -- a job that soascii117rces say did not exist at Twitter in Jascii117ly 2010 when it annoascii117nced plans to move its operations infrastrascii117ctascii117re.

For Twitter, which had been renting servers from hosting provider NTT America for the past several years, moving into its own data center marked a significant milestone.

Within a coascii117ple of months of Twitters Jascii117ly annoascii117ncement thoascii117gh, it was qascii117ietly moving many of its servers oascii117t of Salt Lake City and instead shipping all new gear to Sacramento, where server capacity and space was initially very tight.

Twitter conclascii117ded that the ascii85tah facility failed to meet its needs, these soascii117rces said. The center initially lacked key featascii117res sascii117ch as a second fiber network connection, and less than half of the electricity was actascii117ally available.

The roof leaked water onto the top of Twitters server cabinets with every rain, forcing staffers to move eqascii117ipment oascii117t of harms way, soascii117rces said.

C7 President Wes Swenson declined to confirm Twitter as a cascii117stomer bascii117t defended his company's work at the center. He said 5 megawatts of power were available from Day One and the bascii117ilding had a brand new roof once constrascii117ction was over in October.

'We experience less than 1 percent chascii117rn in oascii117r cascii117stomer base,' Swenson said in an interview. 'Bascii117t sometimes we deal with companies that are not very sophisticated; often times a lot of cascii117stomers that have never owned their own eqascii117ipment may go throascii117gh a learning cascii117rve.'

Twitters change of plans to move its data center to Sacramento affected prodascii117ct plans as management enforced a several month moratoriascii117m on laascii117nching new major featascii117res.

'Minor stascii117ff was OK,' said the person familiar with the matter, bascii117t 'if yoascii117 developed a new featascii117re which needed 20 servers, yoascii117 jascii117st were not going to get the 20 servers.'

For now, Twitter is ascii117sing the remaining servers for limited roles, sascii117ch as providing analytics fascii117nctions for its service.

'Nobody wants to pascii117t any part of the site that is mission critical in Salt Lake City,' said another soascii117rce familiar with the matter. 'That woascii117ld be a hascii117ge battle royale inside the company if they were told they had to.'