Data Center

Data Center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. It generally includes redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls and security devices.

Requirements for Modern Data Centers

IT operations are a crucial aspect of most organizational operations. One of the main concerns is business continuity; companies rely on their information systems to run their operations. If a system becomes unavailable, company operations may be impaired or stopped completely. It is necessary to provide a reliable infrastructure for IT operations, in order to minimize any chance of disruption. Information security is also a concern, and for this reason a data center has to offer a secure environment which minimizes the chances of a security breach. A data center must therefore keep high standards for assuring the integrity and functionality of its hosted computer environment.

Network infrastructure

Communications in data centers today are most often based on networks running the IP Protocol suite. Data centers contain a set of Routers and Switches that transport traffic between the servers and to the outside world. Redundancy of the Internet connection is often provided by using two or more upstream service providers.

Some of the servers at the data center are used for running the basic Internet and Intranent services needed by internal users in the organization, e.g., e-mail servers, proxy server, and DNS servers.

Network security elements are also usually deployed: Firewalls, VPN Gateways, IDS, etc. Also common are monitoring systems for the network and some of the applications. Additional off site monitoring systems are also typical, in case of a failure of communications inside the data center.