With the increasing trend of online businesses, educational, social media, and entertaining websites, every online business or website needs to store huge amounts of data on the internet. It is the reason why the word datacenter or data center comes into existence. Most people are unfamiliar with this term, several are confused, and thinking about datacenter vs data center, is datacenter one word or two? In this article, let me give you a concept of a datacenter, the main components of a data center, why these are important, and why we use them.
What is Datacenter or Data Center?
A data center or datacenter (spelled differently but representing the same concept) is a computer room or a physical place where a large number of computer servers and their associated components including communication networks, storage devices, backups, environmental controls, and many others exist. I am going to talk about all the major components in the next section. As you know, the Internet is based on a large group of networked server machines (from many datacenters) that are used by different organizations to process, store, and distribute large amounts of data.
Organizations need to provide quality services by processing business transactions, electronic exchange of data, and instant data delivery to their clients, so it is the main reason why datacenter or data center comes into existence. Data centers are improving their efficiency and scalability by adopting technologies including IoT (Internet of Things), Cloud computing, and Virtualization applications.
If I share a simple datacenter definition then it is the brain of any organization where all the complex and critical operations are performed on powerful server machines.
What are The Main Components of a Datacenter?
Every data center is designed according to the needs and requirements of a particular organization in a well-constructed and safe building having the following components:
- Servers
- Networking
- Storage
- Software
- Cabling
- Infrastructure
- Cooling
- Backup Power
- Environment Monitoring
Why Datacenters are Important?
The demand for processing power, storage space for emails, website data, online transactions, etc. is increased to deliver the optimum quality of services to valuable customers. Top companies including Facebook, Amazon, and Apple depend on the datacenters to provide their services and products. In simple words, the companies cannot work or experience a big loss of revenue with a higher negative impact on client satisfaction without using the datacenters.
In the initial stages, small companies set up and manage in-house dedicated servers but when their business expands they need more space and more servers for this particular situation. Then they can build a dedicated server room that is very complicated to maintain because they need to provide proper cooling, power, dedicated internet connection, physical security, and cybersecurity. They also need to get alternative solutions to important components like power supply, internet, cooling, etc. that increase the costs.
Datacenters are introduced to reduce the costs of a dedicated server room and improve security. Data centers have all the facilities including backup power supplies, temperature-controlled space, 24/7 supervision, and great cybersecurity tools. Organizations don’t need to worry about anything, they only pay lower prices as compared to the dedicated-server rooms and enjoy maximum features and benefits.
Ashley Woods
Great post! Data centers are indeed the lifelines in our modern computing age. Most businesses are outsourcing their in-house data centers primarily to reduce costs. However, they offer several other benefits including compliance, improved resilience/uptime, cloud connectivity, scalability, and flexibility.