What is a Data Center?

Friday, 21 May 2010

The purpose of a data center is to allow storing huge amounts of equipments connected to communications, computers and electronics. Normally, every type of company has a method of data center, which is managed by organizations, to control the main information services, such as the Internet connectivity, intranets, LANS, WANS and extranets. The most fundamental data center have a computer network, contains backup power supplies, air conditioning, security procedures, which include a very large amount of data stored in many computers. Practically, if a company it is bigger then requires a larger data center(s). Biggest companies can store their own data centers, but the smaller companies can outsource their I.T. infrastructure or they can merge their computer dates to a data center, being capable to store confidential, difficult systems and business dates. Having access to a data center it’s very relevant for a company, this represents the location where will be stored all the main equipments that are important for their operations. A company without a data center, it is like a human body without brain, can’t function without it. Business operating holds the computer and communication elements, beside many other indispensable components.

Internet Servers and Network Infrastructure

Analyzing much detailed the data centers we can discover a lot of kind of Internet servers in it. Data centers are created and secured in a physical and also in a logistical way, to ensure the security of the stored data and equipment. The security represents the most important factor for the data centers. Data centers are like a safely environment in a town. Their target is to manage and run different applications in a way that the business for which they are working to access data files efficiently.

In data centers the network infrastructure communications are established on networks running the IP protocol suite. The traffic between the outside world and the servers is transported by routers and switches that are elements of the data centers. The elementary Internet and intranet services runs by some servers from the data center,  they  are necessary for internal users within the organization, like the email, proxy and DNS servers (Domain Name System (or Service); with this are translated the domain names into IP addresses). Usually there are installed network security elements, like the firewalls, VPN (virtual private network- this gives the possibility to be used of the public telecommunication infrastructure).

Security

Data centers store a lot of types of information. Like example the information that has to store for a financial institution are the followings: important, critical, confidential accounts of the clients, secret numbers and names, and business projects. Banks data centers usually have another type of networks to store their information and data. In case of a university the data centers would store the employee and student’s information, data about the university’s physical holdings like the buildings, data related to the construction projects, intellectual history. Government institutions and those companies that have many centers, television, mobile phone companies and other services of this type, are choosing larger data centers to store critical information.

The security and the technical support are the essential functions of the data centers. This is due to the fact that data centers represent the most vulnerable element of a computer system. Video camera and the security guarding are permanently working in case that the data center store large and special information. In case that a data center needs a physical security then they choose a few individuals who have personal access.

Beside to this normal type of securities, since data centers store the information, it’s hard for a company operation, should prevent the losses and thefts also in other ways. Data centers must ensure a very strong security supporting and also must include backup systems which work with battery power; this is indispensable when an interruption of electrical power happens.

Web Hosting

Referring to the web hosting, data centers are used to store servers (housing shared accounts, dedicated servers, or colocated servers) and also other application types. The physical plan of a data center can include from a single room from a building, more floors or even up to a whole building. Usually the form of the equipment is of 1U type servers, which is situated in 19 inch rack cabinets, in most cases they are situated in a single row, between them there are some to make easier the access. In some cases as large are the racks, there are placed alongside of them the mainframe computers, storage devices and other types of equipment (such as cooling units, fire suppression, uninterruptible power supplies).