Data Centers, explained
The Technical Underbelly
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The Technical Underbelly
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Data Centers
A data center is a physical location where computer systems and equipment are housed and managed. Data centers are made up of servers, storage devices, and networking equipment. They are build to store, process, secure, and/or distribute digital information.
Data center is a bit of a catch-all phrase - data centers range from small server closets to massive enterprise server farms at undisclosed locations. In the paper above, Greene identifies data centers as facilities whose primary use is storage, while others like carrier hotels/colo facilities network computers and deliver apps and services.
Here are a few different kind of data centers that you may hear about:
On-premise data centers refer to computer resources - servers, storage, and networking equipment - that a company privately owns and manages. These used to be entirely “on a company’s physical premises.” Today, they can also run private clouds.
Colocation data centers (aka “colos”) are the Bring Your Own Hardware variety. Colos are big buildings that rent out physical space to customers. Customers bring and manage their own servers, storage devices, and networking equipment. The colo provides bandwidth, backup, and security.
Managed service data centers are like colos except customers can hire staff to manage their hardware and software, on top of making space for and securing it.
Cloud data centers typically refer to geographically dispersed data centers that use virtualization technology to create virtual servers, storage, and networking. This makes computer resources available automatically and to seemingly no end.
Public cloud data centers are what most people associate with “the cloud.” These are data centers owned and managed by third-party cloud providers like AWS, Microsoft Azure, and Google Cloud. They lease a variety of computer resources and services to customers, ie, the general public.
Enterprise data centers typically refer to the ones built by tech behemoths for their own computing or storage uses. Google and Facebook operate massive storage facilities for all our emails, selfies, even old pokes and wall posts. Amazon, for example, got so good at operating their own data centers that they started leasing out space and resources in them, and launched AWS.
In Case You Missed It
Last week’s Shortlisted: Landlords of the internet: Big data and big real estate by Daniel Greene (Sage Publications)
That’s all for now. Thanks for reading!
Up next week, it’s Stay Savvy - curated links and commentary at the intersection of tech, business, and culture.
Alice Egan, Founder & Educator, SaaS Savvy.
I teach B2B SaaS salespeople the technical SaaS + cloud concepts they need to sell SaaS smarter + talk tech with confidence. Learn about my online course.