Data Centers play a huge role in everybody’s life nowadays. So what is a Data Center? A data center is a physical place for servers, house computing machines, network machines, and data storage equipment. It is a critical place for businesses that mostly depends heavily on communication, storing, transferring, and accessing digital data in their operations.
What is data center architecture?
Data center architecture is the actual and logical blueprint of the equipment and resources t within a data center facility. Usually, data center architecture consists of three parts; computing architecture, data center network, and security.
Data center computing architecture: Data center computing architecture is one of the most vital parts of data center architecture. It plays a huge part in the effective use of resources, lowering capital expenditure (CAPEX) costs, and fast deployment and scalability.
Data center network architecture: Data center network (DCN) is a setting of network devices interconnecting all data center resources together. Commonly, it consists of switches and routers in a two- or three-level hierarchy. Interconnecting all data center recourses is a key research area for IT companies and large cloud computing companies. Therefore, data center network architecture also has a vital role in data centers.
Data center security architecture: Data center security means protecting data centers from attacks, threats, and unauthorized access from physical practices and virtual technologies. Data center security architecture usually has two aspects: physical security and software security.
What is data center infrastructure?
Data center infrastructure is the backbone of the Internet. It refers to what hardware, IT infrastructure devices, types of equipment, and technologies a data center have.
What are data center components?
A typical data center facility has switches, firewalls, routers, storage systems such as storage area network (SAN) or backup/tape storage, servers, and application delivery controllers.
What are the types of data centers?
There are many types of data centers. Here is the list of common data center types.
Enterprise data centers: Enterprise data centers are fully owned by companies to operate internal data and process their applications. Usually, they are located on the company campus.
Colocation data centers: Colocation data centers are the types that equipment, space, and bandwidth rented from the data center’s providers while the enterprise provides and manages the components, including servers, storage, and firewalls. The companies; Digital Realty, CoreSite, and Iron Mountain are among the colocation data centers.
Managed services data centers: Managed service data centers are the type that a business leases the equipment and infrastructure from a provider. A third-party provider manages them. The companies; IBM, Accenture, and Infosys are among the managed services data centers.
What are data Center tiers?
Tiers for data centers are a standardized ranking system that shows the trustworthiness of data center infrastructure. There are four data center tiers.
Tier 1: A Tier 1 data center has a basic capacity. It consists of a single path for power and cooling and few if any, redundant backup components. It has the worst expected uptime of 99.671% and downtime of 28.8 hours annually.
Tier 2: A Tier 2 data center contains all the resources of Tier 1 plus partial redundancy such as electrical generators, cooling equipment, and power components. It has an expected uptime of 99.741% and downtime of 22 hours annually.
Tier 3: A Tier 3 data center has the capability of Tier 1 and Tier 2 plus they are concurrently maintainable. They do not require getting offline during planned maintenance and equipment replacement. Tier 3 has an expected uptime of 99.982% and a downtime of 1.6 hours annually.
Tier 4: A Tier 4 data center is designed to be with fault tolerance mechanisms which means having redundancy for every component. Tier 4 has an expected uptime of 99.995% and a downtime of 26.3 minutes of downtime annually.
What is data center security?
Data center security means having a plan for cybersecurity practices, preparations, and operations for protecting the data center from unauthorized access, attacks, and threats. It aims to secure the confidentiality, data, and integrity of businesses.
What are the data center factors?
A good data center is as important as reliable cell phone towers. The best data center location is based on the needs of the businesses and their users. Therefore its location becomes as important as reliable cell phone towers. Here are several key requirements when it comes to deciding the data center location.
- Physical safety and security
- Power availability
- Network
- Cost of property
- Labor availability
- Accessibility
- Taxes and incentives
- Weather
- Local regulation
What is data center virtualization?
Data center virtualization is the transformation of physical data centers into digital data centers by using cloud software. It is a virtual server designed from traditional servers. The users can access information and applications remotely.
A brief history of data centers
Data centers’ roots go back to the 1940s when the world’s first programmable computer, the Electronic Numerical Integrator and Computer, or ENIAC, was founded. It was by the U.S. Army to calculate artillery fire during the Second World War. And often was used by mathematicians and scientists on some projects such as the Manhattan Project to develop the first thermonuclear bomb. Early data centers were very complex and far from modern data centers.
In the 1970s and 80s, computing power rose ever higher and desktop computers became in regular use. However, due to the high cost of power and operations, the organizations chose to outsource their requirement rather than maintain their computer rooms.
Throughout the 1990s, the IT environment completely changed and entered a new era. All traditional frames washed away as the world witnessed the birth of the Internet and the development of client-server computing models.
