The main components of a data center

​A data center is a specially designed building that houses information technology hardware like computing systems, networking equipment, and data storage. In the current era, the amount of data being produced on an everyday basis is increasing at a very fast pace. 

You will be surprised to know that, every year, more than 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are produced every day. Accessing, managing, and storing such a gigantic amount of data has increased the demand of data centers in the modern-day era.

During the early 1940s, huge rooms were made especially for housing massive computers. But even when computers became small and mobile, the traditional structure and placement of the computing system didn’t change owning to the fact of an increase in the functional scope of these machines meant that bigger space was still needed.
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It is true that with the advancement of time, the design of the data center has changed as the modern-day data centers are specially designed to serve the growing need. But most of the parts of a data center have remained the same. Well, in this blog post, we are going to talk about the three most important components of a data center without which a data center will never be able to function properly.

Power

​All the different types of hosting services and computing systems run on a reliable and constant power source. Most of the experts consider power as the holy grail of data centers. In addition to providing power to the collation equipment via the Power Distribution Unit, all the data centers must have a backup or a redundant power source for high uptime and guaranteed server performance. A data center without a backup for power source will never be able to function at full-efficiency and it will be as good as the city grid only. Everybody knows city grids more often and that’s why data centers without power backup are similar to city grids. This is why most of the data centers focus so much on the power source and make sure that it is never interrupted.

Cooling system

The cooling system of a data center is as important as power. An ideal data center facilitates the performance of the computing system, collocation servers, and networking gear without overheating them. All the IT equipment used in data centers heat up just like any other mobile device or laptop but since the number and size of the IT equipment in a data center is very big, it requires a bigger and more efficient cooling system. If you really want to know the importance of the cooling system in data centers then think of the 1997 Dell laptop that used to overheat to the point where it became uncomfortable for use.
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Due to the lack of proper ventilation systems, cold or hot aisles and raised floors, the IT equipment of a data center will quickly heat up and that will not only damage the system but will affect the functioning of the data center as well. All the reputed data centers install a proper cooling system that keeps the hardware system cool and the functions seamless.v

Security

Equal in importance as power and cooling system, a good data center should always have the highest level of security because evil-minded people are always ready to steal the data. All the servers and the hardware system of data centers are a hub of sensitive data. This is why well-maintained data centers use round the clock monitoring, CCTV surveillance, biometric identification and various other security measures for keeping the data center completely secure and safe from any type of threat.

In addition to virtual security, the safety system adopted in data centers has a physical aspect as well. Physical security in data centers means choosing a place where the risk of natural calamities like floods, tornado, and earthquakes is very low. This is why most of the well-maintained data centers are built on specially chosen locations that are well analyzed for any type of risk related to natural calamity.

The above are the three main components of data center but it doesn’t mean that a data center is based on these components only. These three components of a data center are the most vital components without which a data center will crumble down immediately.