Data Centers as IT Temples
One can only appreciate the magnificent scale of data centers these days by going through them. And one cannot help but be impressed by the huge halls and state-of-the-art equipment with the physical security and resilience to power failure that these facilities boast of. And all these are managed by only a few employees.
But the truth of the matter is that only those who can afford to throw away millions of dollars will ever be able to afford enterprise-class data centers. As a matter of fact, a lot of enterprises don’t bother, at least not for their company’s complete data center needs. Instead, they opt for collocation providers who are already investing on these systems on a grander scale.
Quorcica Service Director Bob Tarzey went on a tour of Equinix’s data center in West London to learn more and be impressed about how such facilities are managed.
The attention to security, writes Tarzey, was manifested by the fact that location details were not provided until they have signed a confidentiality agreement. Interestingly, it’s actually difficult to keep a facility as large as that a secret. All you need to do is take a drive along the various industrial properties and you can easily point out which ones are the data centers. These will be the large shiny buildings that are a couple of storeys high, a few windows and no high profile company logo. And, don’t forget the strict security all over it.
Colocation providers usually provide data center spaces combined with data and power connections needed to run the set up. Clients simply rent spaces and then install their own computers in them.
Computing power and the need for it may understandably increase over time and collocation providers are faced with the challenge of helping mitigate the issue instead of aggravating it. The data centers of today have a lot of responsibilities resting on their shoulders. One only needs to consider the impact that IT is making in today’s businesses. And for this, data centers have become temples of the industry.
