Data Center: Up Close And Personal

By Author: Martin Lobo
Total Articles: 355
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A data center is “a centralized repository, either physical or virtual, for the storage, management, and dissemination of data and information organized around a particular body of knowledge or pertaining to a particular business. “ Data center is the most critical infrastructure of any organization as it contains its most vital information such as customer data, vendor data, employee data and company data. Datacenter houses the critical business and operation support systems right from computer systems and associated components such as telecommunications, storage systems, backup power, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls to security devices. Since data centers are robust specialized facility housing highly specialized equipments not only for storing and processing the mission critical data but also for the uninterrupted transmission of it to the right person at the right time, it should be designed and maintained carefully.

Requirements of Data Centers
• Location ...
... of the datacenter should be at a safe and secure place providing protection from manmade and natural disasters
• Uninterruptible power supply
• Modularity and flexibility
• Fire protection
• Physical and information security
• Air conditioning

Characteristics of Data Centers
• Physically house different kinds of IT equipments that include computers, web servers, application servers, database servers, mainframe computers, storage devices, load balancers, routers, switches, vaults, racks, networks, and firewalls
• Ensure security by offering a secure environment that includes round the clock security and surveillance, biometric systems, surveillance cameras, and automatic fire extinguishers
• Uninterruptible power 24/7/365 days and should have emergency power generators and UPS systems
• Most use raised floors or other specialized computer room for precision air conditioning system to maintain optimal temperature and humidity providing optimal server operating conditions.

Types of Data Centers
Data centers are of two types, corporate data centers, and Internet data centers.

Corporate Data Centers
These are data centers owned by private companies, institutions, organizations, or government agencies. Here, the companies or organizations build their own datacenter specific to their needs. This keeps their data safe and secure. Moreover, support and maintenance are carried out by in-house IT departments or by contractor partners.

Internet Data Centers
It refers to those data centers owned and operated by commercial operators and service providers. These are third party service providers who take care of the data center needs of companies by providing services such as wide area communications, internet access, web or application hosting, co-location services, dedicated hosting services, bandwidth services, load balancing, firewall services, disaster recovery services, managed servers, storage networks, and so on.

Related links: Datacenter, Network penetration testing