What Does a Data Center Do?

What does a data center do? A data center is a physical facility where an organization stores its data and critical applications. It is built around a network of computing resources and storage systems that allow multiple users to access and share data and applications. Data centers typically include routers, switches, firewalls, storage systems, servers, and application delivery controllers.

What Is a Modern Data Center?

Modern data centers have evolved significantly from what they were a few years ago. Infrastructure has shifted from on-premises physical servers to virtual networks that support workloads and applications across shared infrastructure pools.

Today, data is distributed across multiple data centers, edge devices, public clouds, and private clouds. Data centers must be capable of communicating with various sites, both on-premises and in the cloud. Even public clouds are made up of multiple data centers. When applications are stored in the cloud, the provider’s data centers handle the storage.

Why Is It Important for Businesses to Have Data Centers?

Data centers in enterprise IT are designed to support a variety of applications and activities, including:

• Email and file sharing
• Productivity applications
• Customer Relationship Management (CRM)
• Databases and Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP)
• Machine learning, artificial intelligence, and big data
• Virtual desktops and communication services

What Are the Main Components of a Data Center?

Data center design includes routers, switches, firewalls, storage systems, servers, and application delivery controllers. Security is a key aspect of data center design, as these components manage and store critical business applications and data. The design provides:

• Network infrastructure: Connects physical and virtual servers, data center services, external connectivity, and storage to end-user locations.
• Storage infrastructure: Data, a crucial asset in modern data centers, is stored in these systems.
• Computing resources: Servers that provide processing power, memory, and local storage, driving the applications that power the data center.

How Do Data Centers Operate?

Data center services are typically deployed to protect the performance and integrity of core data center components. These services include:

• Network security appliances: Such as intrusion protection systems and firewalls, which safeguard the data center from threats.
• Application delivery assurance: These mechanisms ensure application performance and availability through automatic failover and load balancing.

What’s in a Data Center Facility?

Infrastructure is essential to support data center hardware and software. This includes power subsystems (UPS), cooling and ventilation, fire suppression systems, backup generators, and connections to external networks.

What Are the Data Center Standards?

The ANSI/TIA-942 standard is the most widely recognized standard for data centers and their infrastructure. It includes guidelines for ANSI/TIA-942 Ready certification, ensuring compliance across four tiers of data centers, each rated by levels of fault tolerance and redundancy:

• Tier I: Basic Site Infrastructure
  A Tier 1 data center offers limited protection from physical events. It has a single capacity component and a non-redundant, single distribution path.
• Tier II: Redundant-Capacity Component Site Infrastructure
  A Tier 2 data center provides enhanced protection against physical events with redundant-capacity components. However, it still has a single non-redundant distribution path.
• Tier III: Concurrently Maintainable Infrastructure
  A Tier 3 data center is protected against nearly all physical events. It includes redundant components with high capacity and multiple independent distribution paths, allowing components to be replaced or removed without service interruption.
• Tier IV: Fault-Tolerant Site Infrastructure
  A Tier 4 data center provides the highest level of fault tolerance and redundancy. It features multiple independent distribution paths and redundant-capacity components, allowing for concurrent maintenance and the ability to handle a single fault anywhere in the system without impacting service.

Different Types of Data Centers

There are various types of data centers and service models, classified based on ownership, integration with other data centers, technology used for storage and computing, and energy efficiency. The four main types of data centers are:

Enterprise Data Centers

These are designed, built, and operated by companies for their own use. They are typically located on corporate campuses.

Managed Services Data Centers

Managed by a third party or managed services provider on behalf of a company, these data centers allow the company to lease the infrastructure and equipment instead of purchasing it.

Colocation Data Centers

Also known as “colo” data centers, these facilities allow companies to rent space in a data center owned by a third party, typically located off-premises. The colocation provider manages the infrastructure, including the building, cooling, bandwidth, and security, while the company manages and provides its own components, such as servers, storage, and firewalls.

Cloud Data Centers

These off-premises data centers are operated by public cloud service providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS), Microsoft Azure, IBM Cloud, and others. They host data and applications for multiple clients.

Evolution of Computing Infrastructure: From Mainframes to Cloud

Over the past 65 years, computing infrastructure has evolved through three major waves:

1. Mainframes to x86 servers: The first wave saw the transition from mainframes to x86 servers, which are managed on-premises by IT departments.
2. Virtualization of infrastructure: The second wave introduced the virtualization of infrastructure, allowing for better resource utilization and the mobility of workloads across pools of physical infrastructure.
3. Cloud-native and hybrid cloud computing: The third wave encompasses cloud-native, hybrid cloud, and cloud-based computing, which focus on applications designed specifically for the cloud.

Distributed Network Applications

Distributed computing has emerged as a result of this evolution. In this model, data and applications are spread across different systems and integrated through network services, interoperability, and standards. The term “data center” now refers to the department responsible for managing these systems, regardless of their physical location.

Organizations have several options for managing their data centers: they can build and maintain hybrid cloud data centers, lease space in colocation facilities, use shared computing and storage services, or rely on cloud services. Applications are no longer restricted to a single location; they can operate across multiple public and private cloud environments, managed services, and traditional setups. In the multi-cloud era, data centers have become increasingly complex and expansive, designed to provide the best possible user experience.

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