Dive Brief:

• Global maker marketplace Etsy Inc. plans to use server “pods”  instead of large, centralized data centers to help its platform grow worldwide. 
• The co-located pods would slash the amount of time needed for data packets of Etsy content to travel to users. 
• Server pods could eventually number in the thousands and help Etsy create the  “global/local” marketplaces CEO Chad Dickerson indicated it intends to grow. 

Dive Insight:

Etsy is planning for long-term, global expansion with a strategy that favors numerous server “pods” around the world over centralized server farms. The pods are part of Etsy’s “global-local” strategy, which will create local marketplaces around the world to drive sales.

Data requests made to the Etsy’s site and apps now must travel back to a single location; pods would shorten the distance data has to travel to reach to deliver content, allowing the e-commerce marketplace to serve up more dynamic content without building giant data centers.