Facebook, the world’s largest social media platform, sends code all over the world as part of its day-to-day operations. With over 2.9 billion monthly active users as of Q4 2021, Facebook has an enormous global reach and presence. This means that every day, massive amounts of code are transmitted by Facebook’s servers to user devices and between internal systems.
Code Transmissions to User Devices
Whenever someone logs into Facebook on their phone, computer or other device, code is sent from Facebook’s servers to load the user interface and content. This includes:
- The HTML, CSS and JavaScript code that builds the visual interface
- Machine learning models that customize the feed and make recommendations
- Algorithms that rank and select posts to display
- Media files like photos and videos uploaded by users
- Advertising content from Facebook’s millions of advertisers
This code allows Facebook to provide a dynamic, personalized experience for each user. It is transmitted on-demand when the user requests data from Facebook’s servers.
Scale of Transmissions
Given Facebook’s enormous user base, the amount of code sent to devices is staggering:
- Hundreds of terabytes per day
- Millions of lines of code loaded with each page view
- Billions of media files downloaded daily
- Trillions of code transmissions per month
All this code allows Facebook to show relevant posts, photos, videos, ads and more to each person. It powers Facebook’s influential role in news, communication, entertainment and more for users around the world.
Internal Code Transmissions
In addition to code sent to end users, Facebook’s internal systems also communicate through vast code transmissions behind the scenes. These include:
Between Data Centers
Facebook operates dozens of massive data centers around the world that all need to sync and transmit data between each other. This involves petabytes of code sent globally via fiber optic cables to update caches, replicate databases and keep services running efficiently.
Microservices Communications
Facebook’s software architecture relies on thousands of modular microservices. These services all need to send code and data to each other regularly to function. This hidden backbone of code powers all of Facebook’s features even though users don’t directly see it.
Internal Analytics
Facebook gathers huge amounts of analytics on usage patterns, performance issues, demographics and more. Processing and transmitting this data involves enormous amounts of code sent between servers.
Software Deployments
When Facebook engineers push updates to the site and apps, new code needs to be deployed globally across the infrastructure. Code changes fan out worldwide to take effect for users.
Where Does this Code Go?
So where does all of Facebook’s code ultimately go? Here is a breakdown:
User Locations
Code goes to wherever Facebook users are located around the world. This includes:
- Urban areas with high population density
- Suburban and rural areas with Facebook usage
- Areas with high mobile device penetration
- Developing countries where Facebook products are popular
Facebook has data centers and content delivery networks situated close to major population centers to efficiently distribute code globally.
Data Center Locations
| Data Center Location | Status |
|---|---|
| Altoona, Iowa | Active |
| Fort Worth, Texas | Active |
| Papillion, Nebraska | Active |
| Prineville, Oregon | Active |
| Los Lunas, New Mexico | Under construction |
Facebook has major data centers located across the United States to serve North American traffic. Code flows between these locations to support reliability and geographic distribution.
International Offices
Facebook has dozens of offices around the world that require code for internal tools, analytics, website hosting and more. Major technical hubs include:
- Menlo Park, California headquarters
- Seattle, Washington office
- New York City, New York office
- London, England office
- Tel Aviv, Israel office
- Singapore office
Code flows both within these offices and between them to enable global communications and operations.
Conclusion
In summary, Facebook sends enormous amounts of code worldwide each day to power its front-end apps, backend infrastructure and internal analytics systems. This code reaches user devices across the globe, flows between data centers, allows microservices to communicate and facilitates software deployments. The scale of Facebook’s infrastructure requires a massive transmission of code that enables over 2.9 billion people to connect.