What are the types of data centers?
In simple terms, a data center is a specialist facility housing high-end computing equipment that businesses use to store and process their critical data. In the modern data age, most businesses and organisations now make use of centralised dedicated data centers, housed off-site from the business and often shared with multiple businesses. Due to advances in data technology, the data center a business uses may be miles and miles away from where the business actually operates.
There are several different types of data centers, depending on their function and intended use. The classification depends on whether they are owned and used by just one or several businesses, how they connect to other data centers, the technologies they use and their energy efficiency. The four main types of data center are:
Enterprise data centers
These are owned and operated privately by a certain company, business or organisation and are optimised for their end-users. They are usually located close to the business or on the business premises.
Managed Services Data Centers
These are owned and managed by a third party company, on behalf of one business or organisation, with the company paying a lease rather than owning the infrastructure.
Colocation Data Centers
In these data centers, businesses will rent space within a data center owned and managed by others and located off-site. The company will provide the physical components e.g. servers while the data center owns the infrastructure.
Cloud Data Centers
Cloud data centers may be used by several businesses, and everything is hosted by a cloud service provider such as Microsoft or Amazon.
Micro data centers are also a recent innovation, providing some data processing capability at the client end. They are small units with a self-maintained climate that provide a bridge between the business and the data center, reducing latency issues.
Though they may have different functions and serve different businesses, most data centers have the same basic composition. They are usually large buildings or several buildings in a compound, with secure check-in when entering the compound and at the reception. The computing equipment itself is separated from the reception area via a service corridor and is stored in a secure room with a carefully controlled microclimate. These rooms are compromised of data halls (neatly organised rows) of data cabinets or dataracks, where the computing and IT equipment is housed. The data center will also have rooms for power supply and cooling that lead to the data halls, keeping all the vital equipment safely powered and preventing overheating.
Whatever the type of data center, we offer products and solutions that keep your data moving.
Data cooling systems such as water cooling or air cooling, are extremely vital to the running of a data center with high-power computing components in the data center putting out large amounts of heat. Our cooling systems are powerful but energy-efficient, reducing your environmental impact without compromising on performance. We provide innovative data center solutions that keep up with technological advancements and trends so that your business can perform at its very best.
