3rd Generation Data Centers

First of all we need to know what DC are. A quick definition of Data Center according to Wikipedia:

“A 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 (e.g., air conditioning, fire suppression) and various security devices”.

During the years data centers changed a lot as the technology behind it. This post is about what they have become and the requirements for modern data centers.

Their main goals are to host all the equipment needed for:

• Operate and manage a carrier's telecommunication network
• Provide data center based applications directly to the carrier's customers
• Provide hosted applications for a third party to provide services to their customers
• Provide a combination of these and similar data center applications

When we talk about third generation it is because nowadays they have to have certain technology that allows them to offer the newest and modern tech, such as cloud computing, energy saving, security, virtualization, etc.

When building a data center we have to consider the 4 different tiers that our data center can be categorized. Those tiers describes the requirements for the data centers infrastructure and make it easy to identify which one is best for our company. When building one data center we have to consider the following:

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• Physical location of the data center
• Physical security (as well as network security)
• Power supply and cooling system
• Network Design
• Backup system

For example if you have very sensitive data (such as banks), you have to make sure your data is well protected, so you will want a tier 4 data center.