Tech

DATA CENTER
A WEEKLY ARTICLE FROM SWC ENGINEERING
Innerve
Vol 07

A data center is a facility that houses IT (Information Technology) equipment used to process, communicate, and store
data for all our digital activities. A data center is the physical building that you can go touch, point to and say, “This is the
internet”. The term ‘data center’ can range from a small server closet located in an office building to a one-million square-foot
multistory building. However in recent years, a data center typically means a large standalone building. Data center is a
centralized location rendered with computing resources and crucial telecommunications – which includes servers, storage
systems, databases, devices, access networks, software and applications.

Necessity of DC

In recent years, the value of data as a primary research output has begun to be increasingly recognized. New technology
has made it possible to create, store and reuse datasets, either for new analysis or for combination with other data in
order to answer different questions and yes the better solution to answer this is setting up a data center. Any entity that
generates or uses data has the need for data centers on some level, including government agencies, educational bodies,
telecommunications companies, financial institutions, retailers of all sizes, and the purveyors of online information and
social networking services such as Google and Facebook. Lack of fast and reliable access to data can mean an inability to
provide vital services or loss of customer satisfaction and revenue.

COMPONENTS OF DC
• Building shell

• IT equipment (Server, Storage, Networking components)

• Electrical & Mechanical Infrastructure

DATA CENTER CONSOLIDATION AND COLOCATION

There is no requirement for a single data center, and modern businesses may use two or more data center
installations across multiple locations for greater resilience and better application performance, which lowers latency by
locating workloads closer to users. Conversely, a business with multiple data centers may opt to consolidate data centers,
reducing the number of locations in order to minimize the costs of IT operations. Consolidation typically occurs during
mergers and acquisitions when the majority business doesn't need the data centers owned by the subordinate business.

ENERGY CONSUMPTION AND EFFICIENCY

Data center designs also recognize the importance of energy efficiency. A simple data center may need only a few
kilowatts of energy, but an enterprise-scale data center installation can demand tens of megawatts or more. Today, the green
data center, which is designed for minimum environmental impact through the use of low-emission building materials,
catalytic converters and alternative energy technologies, is growing in popularity.

Organizations often measure data center energy efficiency through a metric called power usage effectiveness (PUE),
which represents the ratio of total power entering the data center divided by the power used by IT equipment. However, the
subsequent rise of virtualization has allowed for much more productive use of IT equipment, resulting in much higher
efficiency, lower energy use and energy cost mitigation. Metrics such as PUE are no longer central to energy efficiency goals,
but organizations may still gauge PUE and employ comprehensive power and cooling analyses to better understand and
manage energy efficiency.

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 DATA CENTER TIERS

Uptime Institute created the standard Tier Classification System as a means to effectively evaluate data center
infrastructure in terms of a business’ requirements for system availability. The Tier Classification System provides the data
center industry with a consistent method to compare typically unique, customized facilities based on expected site
infrastructure performance, or uptime.

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 DISASTER RECOVERY [DR]
Disaster recovery in information technology is part of security planning and is developed in conjunction with a
business continuity plan. Disaster recovery is a set of policies and procedures which focus on protecting an organization
from any significant effects in case of a negative event, which may include cyberattacks, natural disasters or building or
device failures. Disaster recovery helps in designing strategies that can restore hardware, applications and data quickly for
business continuity. Recovery Point Objective (RPO) and Recovery Time Objective (RTO) are two of the most important
parameters of a disaster recovery or data protection plan. These are objectives which can guide enterprises to choose an
optimal data backup plan.

 Recovery Point Objective (RPO) describes the interval of time that might pass during a disruption before the
quantity of data lost during that period exceeds the Business Continuity Plan’s maximum allowable threshold or “tolerance.”

 The Recovery Time Objective (RTO) is the duration of time and a service level within which a business process must
be restored after a disaster in order to avoid unacceptable consequences associated with a break in continuity. In other
words, the RTO is the answer to the question: “How much time did it take to recover after notification of business process
disruption?“

Other concepts that strongly determine the DR policies are backup strategies, replication (asynchronous replication or
synchronous replication), Data life cycle etc..

FEW FACTS ABOUT DATA CENTER

Facebook’s massive Arctic Sever Farm

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 It was built on the edge of the Arctic Circle in Northern Sweden. This server farm is able to let go of air conditioning
for cooling and instead just use fresh Arctic air.

The performance of the largest server farms (thousands of CPUs and up) typically relies on the performance of the
data center’s cooling systems and the total electricity cost rather than by the performance of the processors themselves.

A large data center has a capacity to use as much electricity as a small town in United States.

According to Green Computing, data centers older than 7 years are considered out of date. However, in practice the
average life of a data center is considered to be 9 years.

The largest data center networks are by Amazon, Google, Facebook and Microsoft.

Facebook Arctic Data Center

SWC Experience in Data Centers

Nagpur Smart City Data Center Hyderabad City Surveillance Data Center

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