Introduction
A data center — also known as a datacenter or data centre — is a facility composed of networked computers, storage systems and computing infrastructure that organizations use to assemble, process, store and disseminate large amounts of data. A business typically relies heavily on the applications, services and data contained within a data center, making it a critical asset for everyday operations.
Enterprise data centers increasingly incorporate facilities for securing and protecting cloud computing resources and in-house, on-site resources. As enterprises turn to cloud computing, the boundaries between cloud providers’ data centers and enterprise data centers become less clear-cut. Data centers support almost all computation, data storage, and network and business applications for the enterprise. To the extent that the business of a modern enterprise is run on computers, the data center is the business.
Insights of cloud data center
With a cloud data center, the actual hardware is managed and run by the cloud company in question, often with the help of a third-party managed services provider. Clients then run their applications and manage their data within a virtual infrastructure that runs on the cloud servers. Some cloud providers even offer smaller, customized clouds to clients, giving them singular access to their own cloud environment. These are called private clouds, in contrast to public clouds offered by the major cloud players (Amazon, Microsoft, IBM, Google, etc.). Essentially, organizations that want to maintain more control over their environments, but still want the benefits of a cloud solution, often turn to private clouds.
Using the cloud has many benefits over using on-prem data centers. For example, on-prem data centers require a substantial capital investment in hardware. With the cloud, an organization pays only for the portion of hardware that they use. On-prem data centers also incur added costs for power, environmental controls (HVAC), regular upgrades and tests, security, etc. With a cloud provider, these costs are built into the monthly subscription fee structure.
Classification of cloud data center
Based on how advance the technology is, cloud-based data center can be classified into the following types, or more appropriately tiers:
– Tier I Data Center: This is the simplest form of data center that can exist. It has just enough infra to keep it running. Tier I data centers are the simplest, cheapest and the most obsolete data center in existence today. Tier I can be as small as a closet and feature a single power line with no backup services.
– Tier II Data Center: The second tier sits just above 1st and is an improvement over its predecessor tier. The second-tier cloud data centre has multiple redundant components and backup power. It also features an improved cooling system.
– Tier III Data Center: Is a more modern tier and has redundancy for every single component. Means, every component will have one backup working simultaneously. When either of the two – hardware and its backup hardware fails – the other takes on the operations of the failed hardware. Thus, such cloud-based data centers have the best up-time availability.
– Tier IV Data Center: of all data centers in cloud computing, tier IV is the most advanced and so the most reliable. Like Tier IV it has backup for every component, even power lines and cooling system. The assembly is fully fault tolerant and can undergo maintenance while still in operation.
Conclusion
The future of data centers will rely on cloud, hyperconverged infrastructure and more powerful devices. A data center is a physical facility that enterprises use to house their business-critical applications and information. As they evolve from centralized on-premises facilities to edge deployments to public cloud services, it’s important to think long-term about how to maintain their reliability and security.