Apple is souping up its internal network and data centers ahead of its new streaming music service and upgraded Apple TV, according to a new report.
Bloomberg Business cites “people familiar with the plans,” who say that Apple is making moves to keep up with other content providers like Amazon, Google and Microsoft. The build-up would put more of Apple’s data under its control by relying less on third-party hardware and letting the company’s own infrastructure carry the load.
“If you’re using someone else’s networks and data centers, you lose some control,” Steve Garrison, vice president of networking company Pica8, told Bloomberg. “It’s hard to call Amazon at 10 o’clock on a Friday night and say, ‘Triple my capacity right now.’”
Apple won’t be swapping out the hardware in its current data centers, but new facilities planned for Arizona, Denmark and Ireland will use the company’s own gear. This will save the time and money of retrofitting existing sites in favor of letting those centers support the ones with new hardware.
With Apple poised to unveil its music service at WWDC this week and a new Apple TV on the way, the move makes sense. It’s about to be pushing a lot more data through its infrastructure, and it’d be a good idea to make sure its pipes can handle it.
Update – 12:29 p.m.: The original post mistakenly attributed the quotation to ‘Jim’ Garrison and not Steve. We’ve made the correction and apologize for the error.
