Data center - AbsoluteAstronomy.com

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 security devices.

History

Data centers have their roots in the huge computer rooms of the early ages of the computing industry. Early computer systems were complex to operate and maintain, and required a special environment in which to operate. Many cables were necessary to connect all the components, and methods to accommodate and organize these were devised, such as standard rack

19-inch rack

A 19-inch rack is a standardized frame or enclosure for mounting multiple equipment modules. Each module has a front panel that is wide, including edges or ears that protrude on each side which allow the module to be fastened to the rack frame with screws.-Overview and history:Equipment designed...

s to mount equipment, elevated floor

Raised floor

A raised floor or access floor are types of floor that provide an elevated structural floor above a solid substrate to create a hidden void for the passage of mechanical and electrical services...

s, and cable tray

Cable tray

In the electrical wiring of buildings, a cable tray system is used to support insulated electric cables used for power distribution and communication. Cable trays are used as an alternative to open wiring or electrical conduit systems, and are commonly used for cable management in commercial and...

s (installed overhead or under the elevated floor). Also, a single mainframe required a great deal of power, and had to be cooled to avoid overheating. Security was important – computers were expensive, and were often used for military purposes. Basic design guidelines for controlling access to the computer room were therefore devised.

During the boom of the microcomputer industry, and especially during the 1980s, computers started to be deployed everywhere, in many cases with little or no care about operating requirements. However, as information technology

Information technology

Information technology is the acquisition, processing, storage and dissemination of vocal, pictorial, textual and numerical information by a microelectronics-based combination of computing and telecommunications...

(IT) operations started to grow in complexity, companies grew aware of the need to control IT resources. With the advent of client-server computing, during the 1990s, microcomputers (now called "servers

Server (computing)

In the context of client-server architecture, a server is a computer program running to serve the requests of other programs, the "clients". Thus, the "server" performs some computational task on behalf of "clients"...

") started to find their places in the old computer rooms. The availability of inexpensive networking

Networking hardware

Networking hardware typically refers to equipment facilitating the use of a computer network. Typically, this includes routers, switches, hubs, gateways, access points, network interface cards, Networking cables, network bridges, modems, ISDN adapters, firewalls and other equipments.In the most...

equipment, coupled with new standards for network structured cabling

Structured cabling

Structured cabling is building or campus telecommunications cabling infrastructure that consists of a number of standardized smaller elements called subsystems.Structured cabling falls into six subsystems:...

, made it possible to use a hierarchical design that put the servers in a specific room inside the company. The use of the term "data center," as applied to specially designed computer rooms, started to gain popular recognition about this time,

The boom of data centers came during the dot-com bubble

Dot-com bubble

The dot-com bubble was a speculative bubble covering roughly 1995–2000 during which stock markets in industrialized nations saw their equity value rise rapidly from growth in the more...

. Companies needed fast Internet connectivity and nonstop operation to deploy systems and establish a presence on the Internet. Installing such equipment was not viable for many smaller companies. Many companies started building very large facilities, called Internet data centers (IDCs), which provide businesses with a range of solutions for systems deployment and operation. New technologies and practices were designed to handle the scale and the operational requirements of such large-scale operations. These practices eventually migrated toward the private data centers, and were adopted largely because of their practical results.

, data center design, construction, and operation is a well-known discipline. Standard Documents from accredited professional groups, such as the Telecommunications Industry Association

Telecommunications Industry Association

The Telecommunications Industry Association is accredited by the American National Standards Institute to develop voluntary, consensus-based industry standards for a wide variety of ICT products, and currently represents nearly 400 companies...

, specify the requirements for data center design. Well-known operational metrics for data center availability can be used to evaluate the business impact of a disruption. There is still a lot of development being done in operation practice, and also in environmentally-friendly data center design. Data centers are typically very expensive to build and maintain. For instance, Amazon.com's 116000 sq ft (10,776.8 m²) data center in Boardman, Oregon cost up to $100 million.

Requirements for modern data centers

IT operations are a crucial aspect of most organizational operations. One of the main concerns is business continuity; companies rely on their information systems to run their operations. If a system becomes unavailable, company operations may be impaired or stopped completely. It is necessary to provide a reliable infrastructure for IT operations, in order to minimize any chance of disruption. Information security is also a concern, and for this reason a data center has to offer a secure environment which minimizes the chances of a security breach. A data center must therefore keep high standards for assuring the integrity and functionality of its hosted computer environment. This is accomplished through redundancy of both fiber optic cables and power, which includes emergency backup power generation.

The Telecommunications Industry Association

Telecommunications Industry Association

's TIA-942 Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers, which specifies the minimum requirements for telecommunications infrastructure of data centers and computer rooms including single tenant enterprise data centers and multi-tenant Internet hosting data centers. The topology proposed in this document is intended to be applicable to any size data center.

Telcordia GR-3160, NEBS Requirements for Telecommunications Data Center Equipment and Spaces, provides guidelines for data center spaces within telecommunications networks, and environmental requirements for the equipment intended for installation in those spaces. These criteria were developed jointly by Telcordia and industry representatives. They may be applied to data center spaces housing data processing or Information Technology (IT) equipment. The equipment may be used to:

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.

Effective data center operation requires a balanced investment in both the facility and the housed equipment. The first step is to establish a baseline facility environment suitable for equipment installation. Standardization and modularity can yield savings and efficiencies in the design and construction of telecommunications data centers.

Standardization means integrated building and equipment engineering. Modularity has the benefits of scalability and easier growth, even when planning forecasts are less than optimal. For these reasons, telecommunications data centers should be planned in repetitive building blocks of equipment, and associated power and support (conditioning) equipment when practical. The use of dedicated centralized systems requires more accurate forecasts of future needs to prevent expensive over construction, or perhaps worse — under construction that fails to meet future needs.

The "lights-out" data center, also known as a darkened or a dark data center, is a data center that, ideally, has all but eliminated the need for direct access by personnel, except under extraordinary circumstances. Because of the lack of need for staff to enter the data center, it can be operated without lighting. All of the devices are accessed and managed by remote systems, with automation programs used to perform unattended operations. In addition to the energy savings, reduction in staffing costs and the ability to locate the site further from population centers, implementing a lights-out data center reduces the threat of malicious attacks upon the infrastructure.

There is a trend to modernize data centers in order to take advantage of the performance and energy efficiency increases of newer IT equipment and capabilities, such as cloud computing

Cloud computing

Cloud computing is the delivery of computing as a service rather than a product, whereby shared resources, software, and information are provided to computers and other devices as a utility over a network ....

. This process is also known as data center transformation.

Organizations are experiencing rapid IT growth but their data centers are aging. Industry research company International Data Corporation

International Data Corporation

International Data Corporation is a market research and analysis firm specializing in information technology, telecommunications and consumer technology. IDC is a subsidiary of International Data Group...

(IDC) puts the average age of a data center at nine-years-old. Gartner

Gartner

Gartner, Inc. is an information technology research and advisory firm headquartered in Stamford, Connecticut, United States. It was known as GartnerGroup until 2001....

, another research company says data centers older than seven years are obsolete.

In May 2011, data center research organization Uptime Institute, reported that 36 percent of the large companies it surveyed expect to exhaust IT capacity within the next 18 months.

Data center transformation takes a step-by-step approach through integrated projects carried out over time. This differs from a traditional method of data center upgrades that takes a serial and siloed approach. The typical projects within a data center transformation initiative include standardization/consolidation, virtualization, automation

Automation

Automation is the use of control systems and information technologies to reduce the need for human work in the production of goods and services. In the scope of industrialization, automation is a step beyond mechanization...

and security.

Standardization/consolidation: The purpose of this project is to reduce the number of data centers a large organization may have. This project also helps to reduce the number of hardware, software platforms, tools and processes within a data center. Organizations replace aging data center equipment with newer ones that provide increased capacity and performance. Computing, networking and management platforms are standardized so they are easier to manage.

Virtualize: There is a trend to use IT virtualization technologies to replace or consolidate multiple data center equipment, such as servers. virtualization helps to lower capital and operational expenses, and reduce energy consumption. Data released by investment bank Lazard Capital Markets reports that 48 percent of enterprise operations will be virtualized by 2012. Gartner views virtualization as a catalyst for modernization.

Automating: Data center automation involves automating tasks such as provisioning
Provisioning
In telecommunication, provisioning is the process of preparing and equipping a network to allow it to provide services to its users. In NS/EP telecommunications services, "provisioning" equates to "initiation" and includes altering the state of an existing priority service or capability.In a...

, configuration, patch
Patch
-Computing:* Patch , fix for a software program* Patch , UNIX utility* Patch, a 3-D Bézier curve used in computer graphics, or a primitive in some 3-D software packages* Patch Media, website for local news and events-Electronics:...

ing, release management and compliance. As enterprises suffer from few skilled IT workers, automating tasks make data centers run more efficiently.

Securing: In modern data centers, the security of data on virtual systems is integrated with existing security of physical infrastructures. The security of a modern data center must take into account physical security, network security, and data and user security.

Carrier Neutrality

Today many data centres are run by Internet Service Provider

Internet service provider

An Internet service provider is a company that provides access to the Internet. Access ISPs directly connect customers to the Internet using copper wires, wireless or fiber-optic connections. Hosting ISPs lease server space for smaller businesses and host other people servers...

s soley for the purpose of hosting their own and third party Server(computing)

However traditionally Data Center's where either built for the sole use of one large company (i.e Google, Amazon etc.) or as carrier hotel's or Network-neutral data center

Network-neutral data center

Network-neutral data centers are data centerss which allow interconnection between multiple telecommunication carriers and or Colocation providers...

's

These facilities enable interconnection of carriers and act as regional fibre hubs serving local business in addition to hosting content Server(compting)

Data center Tiers

The Telecommunications Industry Association

Telecommunications Industry Association

is a trade association accredited by ANSI (American National Standards Institute). In 2005 it published ANSI/TIA-942, Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers, which defined four levels (called tiers) of data centers in a thorough, quantifiable manner. TIA-942 was amended in 2008 and again in 2010.TIA-942:Data Center Standards Overview describes the requirements for the data center infrastructure. The simplest is a Tier 1 data center, which is basically a server room

Server room

A server room is a room that houses mainly computer servers. In information technology circles, the term is generally used for smaller arrangements of servers; larger groups of servers are housed in data centers...

, following basic guidelines for the installation of computer systems. The most stringent level is a Tier 4 data center, which is designed to host mission critical computer systems, with fully redundant subsystems and compartmentalized security zones controlled by biometric access controls methods. Another consideration is the placement of the data center in a subterranean context, for data security as well as environmental considerations such as cooling requirements.

The German Datacenter star audit

Datacenter star audit

The Datacenter Star Audit is one of several services of eco – Association of the German Internet Industry e.V. and was designed as a seal of approval for data centers. It examines and evaluates objectively infrastructure and services. The assigned stars provide information about the quality and...

programme uses an auditing process to certify 5 levels of "gratification" that affect Data Center criticality.

Independent from the ANSI/TIA-942 standard, the Uptime Institute, a think tank and professional-services organization based in Santa Fe

Santa Fe, New Mexico

Santa Fe is the capital of the U.S. state of New Mexico. It is the fourth-largest city in the state and is the seat of . Santa Fe had a population of 67,947 in the 2010 census...

, New Mexico

New Mexico

New Mexico is a state located in the southwest and western regions of the United States. New Mexico is also usually considered one of the Mountain States. With a population density of 16 per square mile, New Mexico is the sixth-most sparsely inhabited U.S...

, has defined its own four levels on which it holds a copyright. The levels describe the availability of data from the hardware at a location. The higher the tier, the greater the availability. The levels are:

Tier Level	Requirements
1	Single non-redundant distribution path serving the IT equipment Non-redundant capacity components Basic site infrastructure guaranteeing 99.671% availability
2	Meets or exceeds all Tier 1 requirements Redundant site infrastructure capacity components guaranteeing 99.741% availability
3	Meets or exceeds all Tier 1 and Tier 2 requirements Multiple independent distribution paths serving the IT equipment All IT equipment must be dual-powered and fully compatible with the topology of a site's architecture Concurrently maintainable site infrastructure guaranteeing 99.982% availability
4	Meets or exceeds all Tier 1, Tier 2 and Tier 3 requirements All cooling equipment is independently dual-powered, including chillers and heating, ventilating and air-conditioning (HVAC) systems Fault-tolerant site infrastructure with electrical power storage and distribution facilities guaranteeing 99.995% availability

Design considerations

A data center can occupy one room of a building, one or more floors, or an entire building. Most of the equipment is often in the form of servers mounted in 19 inch rack cabinets, which are usually placed in single rows forming corridors (so-called aisles) between them. This allows people access to the front and rear of each cabinet. Servers differ greatly in size from 1U server

Rack unit

A rack unit or U is a unit of measure used to describe the height of equipment intended for mounting in a 19-inch rack or a 23-inch rack...

s to large freestanding storage silos which occupy many tiles on the floor. Some equipment such as mainframe computer

Mainframe computer

Mainframes are powerful computers used primarily by corporate and governmental organizations for critical applications, bulk data processing such as census, industry and consumer statistics, enterprise resource planning, and financial transaction processing.The term originally referred to the...

s and storage

Computer storage

Computer data storage, often called storage or memory, refers to computer components and recording media that retain digital data. Data storage is one of the core functions and fundamental components of computers....

devices are often as big as the racks themselves, and are placed alongside them. Very large data centers may use shipping container

Intermodal container

An intermodal container is a standardized reusable steel box used for the safe, efficient and secure storage and movement of materials and products within a global containerized intermodal freight transport system...

s packed with 1,000 or more servers each; when repairs or upgrades are needed, whole containers are replaced (rather than repairing individual servers).

Local building codes may govern the minimum ceiling heights.

Environmental control

The physical environment of a data center is rigorously controlled.
Air conditioning

Air conditioning

An air conditioner is a home appliance, system, or mechanism designed to dehumidify and extract heat from an area. The cooling is done using a simple refrigeration cycle...

is used to control the temperature and humidity in the data center. ASHRAE's "Thermal Guidelines for Data Processing Environments" recommends a temperature range of 16 – and humidity range of 40–55% with a maximum dew point of 15°C as optimal for data center conditions. The temperature in a data center will naturally rise because the electrical power used heats the air. Unless the heat is removed, the ambient temperature will rise, resulting in electronic equipment malfunction. By controlling the air temperature, the server components at the board level are kept within the manufacturer's specified temperature/humidity range. Air conditioning systems help control humidity

Humidity

Humidity is a term for the amount of water vapor in the air, and can refer to any one of several measurements of humidity. Formally, humid air is not "moist air" but a mixture of water vapor and other constituents of air, and humidity is defined in terms of the water content of this mixture,...

by cooling the return space air below the dew point

Dew point

The dew point is the temperature to which a given parcel of humid air must be cooled, at constant barometric pressure, for water vapor to condense into liquid water. The condensed water is called dew when it forms on a solid surface. The dew point is a saturation temperature.The dew point is...

. Too much humidity, and water may begin to condense

Condensation

Condensation is the change of the physical state of matter from gaseous phase into liquid phase, and is the reverse of vaporization. When the transition happens from the gaseous phase into the solid phase directly, the change is called deposition....

on internal components. In case of a dry atmosphere, ancillary humidification systems may add water vapor if the humidity is too low, which can result in static electricity

Electrostatics

Electrostatics is the branch of physics that deals with the phenomena and properties of stationary or slow-moving electric charges....

discharge problems which may damage components. Subterranean data centers may keep computer equipment cool while expending less energy than conventional designs.

Modern data centers try to use economizer cooling, where they use outside air to keep the data center cool. Many data centers now cool all of the servers using outside air. They do not use chillers/air conditioners, which creates potential energy savings in the millions.

Telcordia GR-2930, NEBS: Raised Floor Generic Requirements for Network and Data Centers, presents generic engineering requirements for raised floors that fall within the strict NEBS guidelines.

There are many types of commercially available floors that offer a wide range of structural strength and loading capabilities, depending on component construction and the materials used. The general types of raised floors include stringerless, stringered, and structural platforms, all of which are discussed in detail in GR-2930 and summarized below.

Stringerless Raised Floors - One non-earthquake type of raised floor generally consists of an array of pedestals that provide the necessary height for routing cables and also serve to support each corner of the floor panels. With this type of floor, there may or may not be provisioning to mechanically fasten the floor panels to the pedestals. This stringerless type of system (having no mechanical attachments between the pedestal heads) provides maximum accessibility to the space under the floor. However, stringerless floors are significantly weaker than stringered raised floors in supporting lateral loads and are not recommended.

Stringered Raised Floors - This type of raised floor generally consists of a vertical array of steel pedestal assemblies (each assembly is made up of a steel base plate, tubular upright, and a head) uniformly spaced on two-foot centers and mechanically fastened to the concrete floor. The steel pedestal head has a stud that is inserted into the pedestal upright and the overall height is adjustable with a leveling nut on the welded stud of the pedestal head.

Structural Platforms - One type of structural platform consists of members constructed of steel angles or channels that are welded or bolted together to form an integrated platform for supporting equipment. This design permits equipment to be fastened directly to the platform without the need for toggle bars or supplemental bracing. Structural platforms may or may not contain panels or stringers.

Metal Whiskers

Raised floors and other metal structures such as cable trays and ventilation ducts have caused many problems with zinc whiskers in the past, and likely are still present in many data centers. This happens when microscopic metallic filaments form on metals such as zinc or tin that protect many metal structures and electronic components from corrosion. Maintenance on a raised floor or installing of cable etc. can dislodge the whiskers, which enter the airflow and may short circuit server components or power supplies, sometimes through a high current metal vapor plasma arc. This phenomenon is not unique to data centers, and has also caused catastrophic failures of satellites and military hardware.

Electrical power

Backup power consists of one or more uninterruptible power supplies

Uninterruptible power supply

An uninterruptible power supply, also uninterruptible power source, UPS or battery/flywheel backup, is an electrical apparatus that provides emergency power to a load when the input power source, typically mains power, fails...

, battery banks, and/or diesel generator

Electrical generator

In electricity generation, an electric generator is a device that converts mechanical energy to electrical energy. A generator forces electric charge to flow through an external electrical circuit. It is analogous to a water pump, which causes water to flow...

s.

To prevent single points of failure

Single point of failure

A single point of failure is a part of a system that, if it fails, will stop the entire system from working. They are undesirable in any system with a goal of high availability or reliability, be it a business practice, software application, or other industrial system.-Overview:Systems can be made...

, all elements of the electrical systems, including backup systems, are typically fully duplicated, and critical servers are connected to both the "A-side" and "B-side" power feeds. This arrangement is often made to achieve N+1 redundancy

N+1 Redundancy

N+1 redundancy is a form of resilience that ensures system availability in the event of component failure.Components have at least one independent backup component . The level of resilience is referred to as active/passive or standby as backup components do not actively participate within the...

in the systems. Static switches are sometimes used to ensure instantaneous switchover from one supply to the other in the event of a power failure.

Data centers typically have raised floor

Raised floor

A raised floor or access floor are types of floor that provide an elevated structural floor above a solid substrate to create a hidden void for the passage of mechanical and electrical services...

ing made up of 60 cm (2 ft) removable square tiles. The trend is towards 80–100 cm (31.5–39.4 in) void to cater for better and uniform air distribution. These provide a plenum for air to circulate below the floor, as part of the air conditioning system, as well as providing space for power cabling.

Some new data centres and technology demonstrations are beginning to standardise a 380VDC power distribution network that is expected to improve efficiency of building power systems. Since much of the power loss in electrical systems is caused by voltage and AC/DC conversion, an all DC network supplying low voltage

Low voltage

Low voltage when used as an electrical engineering term concerning an electricity supply grid or industrial use, broadly identifies safety considerations of the system based on the voltage used. The meaning of the term "low voltage" is somewhat different when used with regard to a more typical end...

(LV) power close to equipment loads is expected to achieve significant savings in power usage and cooling loads. 380VDC power supply requires DC connector

DC connector

A DC connector is an electrical connector for supplying direct current power. Unlike domestic AC power plugs and sockets, DC connectors are not generally standardized....

s that prevent them being used on AC equipment, with possible standardisation likely to use connectors such as the Anderson Powerpole® Pak.

Low-voltage cable routing

Data cabling is typically routed through overhead cable tray

Cable tray

s in modern data centers. But some are still recommending under raised floor cabling for security reasons and to consider the addition of cooling systems above the racks in case this enhancement is necessary. Smaller/less expensive data centers without raised flooring may use anti-static tiles for a flooring surface. Computer cabinets are often organized into a hot aisle arrangement to maximize airflow efficiency.

Fire protection

Data centers feature fire protection

Fire protection

Fire protection is the study and practice of mitigating the unwanted effects of fires. It involves the study of the behaviour, compartmentalisation, suppression and investigation of fire and its related emergencies, as well as the research and development, production, testing and application of...

systems, including passive

Passive fire protection

Passive fire protection is an integral component of the three components of structural fire protection and fire safety in a building. PFP attempts to contain fires or slow the spread, through use of fire-resistant walls, floors, and doors...

and active

Active fire protection

Active fire protection is an integral part of fire protection. AFP is characterised by items and/or systems, which require a certain amount of motion and response in order to work, contrary to passive fire protection.-Fire suppression:...

design elements, as well as implementation of fire prevention

Fire prevention

Fire Prevention is a function of many fire departments. The goal of fire prevention is to educate the public to take precautions to prevent fires, and be educated about surviving them. It is a proactive method of reducing emergencies and the damage caused by them. Many fire departments have a Fire...

programs in operations. Smoke detectors are usually installed to provide early warning of a developing fire by detecting particles generated by smoldering components prior to the development of flame. This allows investigation, interruption of power, and manual fire suppression using hand held fire extinguishers before the fire grows to a large size. A fire sprinkler system is often provided to control a full scale fire if it develops. Fire sprinklers require 18 in (45.7 cm) of clearance (free of cable trays, etc.) below the sprinklers. Clean agent fire suppression gaseous systems are sometimes installed to suppress a fire earlier than the fire sprinkler system. Passive fire protection elements include the installation of fire walls

Firewall (construction)

A firewall is a fireproof barrier used to prevent the spread of fire between or through buildings, structures, electrical substation transformers, or within an aircraft or vehicle.- Applications :...

around the data center, so a fire can be restricted to a portion of the facility for a limited time in the event of the failure of the active fire protection systems, such as making sure the door is not left open or if they are not installed. For critical facilities these firewalls are often insufficient to protect heat-sensitive electronic equipment, however, because conventional firewall construction is only rated for flame penetration time, not heat penetration. There are also deficiencies in the protection of vulnerable entry points into the server room, such as cable penetrations, coolant line penetrations and air ducts. For mission critical data centers fireproof vaults

Fireproofing

Fireproofing, a passive fire protection measure, refers to the act of making materials or structures more resistant to fire, or to those materials themselves, or the act of applying such materials. Applying a certification listed fireproofing system to certain structures allows these to have a...

with a Class 125

Fireproofing

rating are necessary to meet NFPA 75

Library fires

Library fires have happened sporadically through the centuries: notable examples are the destruction of the Library of Alexandria and the accidental burning of the Duchess Anna Amalia Library in Weimar...

standards.

Security

Physical security also plays a large role with data centers. Physical access to the site is usually restricted to selected personnel, with controls including bollard

Bollard

A bollard is a short vertical post. Originally it meant a post used on a ship or a quay, principally for mooring. The word now also describes a variety of structures to control or direct road traffic, such as posts arranged in a line to obstruct the passage of motor vehicles...

s and mantrap

Mantrap

Mantraps are physical security devices or constructions designed to entrap a human on purpose.-Historical usage:Historically, mantraps were mechanical devices for catching poachers and trespassers. The devices have taken many forms, the most usual being like a large foothold trap, the steel springs...

s. Video camera

Video camera

A video camera is a camera used for electronic motion picture acquisition, initially developed by the television industry but now common in other applications as well. The earliest video cameras were those of John Logie Baird, based on the electromechanical Nipkow disk and used by the BBC in...

surveillance and permanent security guard

Security guard

A security guard is a person who is paid to protect property, assets, or people. Security guards are usually privately and formally employed personnel...

s are almost always present if the data center is large or contains sensitive information on any of the systems within. The use of finger print recognition man traps is starting to be commonplace.

Energy use

Energy use is a central issue for data centers. Power draw for data centers ranges from a few kW for a rack of servers in a closet to several tens of MW for large facilities. Some facilities have power densities more than 100 times that of a typical office building. For higher power density facilities, electricity costs are a dominant operating expense

Operating expense

An operating expense, operating expenditure, operational expense, operational expenditure or OPEX is an ongoing cost for running a product, business, or system . Its counterpart, a capital expenditure , is the cost of developing or providing non-consumable parts for the product or system...

and account for over 10% of the total cost of ownership

Total cost of ownership

Total cost of ownership is a financial estimate whose purpose is to help consumers and enterprise managers determine direct and indirect costs of a product or system...

(TCO) of a data center. By 2012 the cost of power for the data center is expected to exceed the cost of the original capital investment.

Greenhouse gas emissions

In 2007 the entire information and communication technologies

Information and communication technologies

Information and communications technology or information and communication technology, usually abbreviated as ICT, is often used as an extended synonym for information technology , but is usually a more general term that stresses the role of unified communications and the integration of...

or ICT sector was estimated to be responsible for roughly 2% of global carbon emissions

Greenhouse gas

A greenhouse gas is a gas in an atmosphere that absorbs and emits radiation within the thermal infrared range. This process is the fundamental cause of the greenhouse effect. The primary greenhouse gases in the Earth's atmosphere are water vapor, carbon dioxide, methane, nitrous oxide, and ozone...

with data centers accounting for 14% of the ICT footprint. The US EPA estimates that servers and data centers are responsible for up to 1.5% of the total US electricity consumption, or roughly .5% of US GHG emissions, for 2007. Given a business as usual scenario greenhouse gas emissions from data centers is projected to more than double from 2007 levels by 2020.

Siting is one of the factors that affect the energy consumption and environmental effects of a datacenter. In areas where climate favors cooling and lots of renewable electricity is available the environmental effects will be more moderate. Thus countries with favorable conditions, such as: Canada, Finland, Sweden and Switzerland, are trying to attract cloud computing data centers.

In an 18-month investigation by scholars at Rice University’s Baker Institute for Public Policy in Houston and the Institute for Sustainable and Applied Infodynamics in Singapore, data center-related emissions will more than triple by 2020.

Energy efficiency

The most commonly used metric to determine the energy efficiency of a data center is power usage effectiveness

Power usage effectiveness

Power usage effectiveness is a measure of how efficiently a computer data center uses its power; specifically, how much of the power is actually used by the computing equipment ....

, or PUE. This simple ratio is the total power entering the data center divided by the power used by the IT equipment.

Power used by support equipment, often referred to as overhead load, mainly consists of cooling systems, power delivery, and other facility infrastructure like lighting. The average data center in the US has a PUE of 2.0, meaning that the facility uses one Watt of overhead power for every Watt delivered to IT equipment. State-of-the-art data center energy efficiency is estimated to be roughly 1.2. Some large data center operators like Microsoft

Microsoft

Microsoft Corporation is an American public multinational corporation headquartered in Redmond, Washington, USA that develops, manufactures, licenses, and supports a wide range of products and services predominantly related to computing through its various product divisions...

and Yahoo!

Yahoo!

Yahoo! Inc. is an American multinational internet corporation headquartered in Sunnyvale, California, United States. The company is perhaps best known for its web portal, search engine , Yahoo! Directory, Yahoo! Mail, Yahoo! News, Yahoo! Groups, Yahoo! Answers, advertising, online mapping ,...

have published projections of PUE for facilities in development; Google

Google

Google Inc. is an American multinational public corporation invested in Internet search, cloud computing, and advertising technologies. Google hosts and develops a number of Internet-based services and products, and generates profit primarily from advertising through its AdWords program...

publishes quarterly actual efficiency performance from data centers in operation.

The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency has an Energy Star

Energy Star

Energy Star is an international standard for energy efficient consumer products originated in the United States of America. It was first created as a United States government program during the early 1990s, but Australia, Canada, Japan, New Zealand, Taiwan and the European Union have also adopted...

rating for standalone or large data centers. To qualify for the ecolabel, a data center must be within the top quartile of energy efficiency of all reported facilities.

European Union also has a similar initiative: EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres

Network infrastructure

Communications in data centers today are most often based on networks

Computer network

A computer network, often simply referred to as a network, is a collection of hardware components and computers interconnected by communication channels that allow sharing of resources and information....

running the IP

Internet Protocol

The Internet Protocol is the principal communications protocol used for relaying datagrams across an internetwork using the Internet Protocol Suite...

protocol suite. Data centers contain a set of routers and switch

Network switch

A network switch or switching hub is a computer networking device that connects network segments.The term commonly refers to a multi-port network bridge that processes and routes data at the data link layer of the OSI model...

es that transport traffic between the servers and to the outside world. Redundancy

Redundancy (engineering)

In engineering, redundancy is the duplication of critical components or functions of a system with the intention of increasing reliability of the system, usually in the case of a backup or fail-safe....

of the Internet connection is often provided by using two or more upstream service providers (see Multihoming

Multihoming

Multihoming is a technique used to increase the reliability of the Internet connection for an IP network. As an adjective, it is typically used to describe a customer, rather than an Internet service provider network...

).

Some of the servers at the data center are used for running the basic Internet

Internet

The Internet is a global system of interconnected computer networks that use the standard Internet protocol suite to serve billions of users worldwide...

and intranet

Intranet

An intranet is a computer network that uses Internet Protocol technology to securely share any part of an organization's information or network operating system within that organization. The term is used in contrast to internet, a network between organizations, and instead refers to a network...

services needed by internal users in the organization, e.g., e-mail

E-mail

Electronic mail, commonly known as email or e-mail, is a method of exchanging digital messages from an author to one or more recipients. Modern email operates across the Internet or other computer networks. Some early email systems required that the author and the recipient both be online at the...

servers, proxy server

Proxy server

In computer networks, a proxy server is a server that acts as an intermediary for requests from clients seeking resources from other servers. A client connects to the proxy server, requesting some service, such as a file, connection, web page, or other resource available from a different server...

s, and DNS

Domain name system

The Domain Name System is a hierarchical distributed naming system for computers, services, or any resource connected to the Internet or a private network. It associates various information with domain names assigned to each of the participating entities...

servers.

Network security elements are also usually deployed: firewalls, VPN gateways, intrusion detection systems, etc. Also common are monitoring systems for the network and some of the applications. Additional off site monitoring systems are also typical, in case of a failure of communications inside the data center.

Data Center Infrastructure Management

Data center infrastructure management

Data center infrastructure management is the integration of information technology and facility management disciplines to centralize monitoring, management and intelligent capacity planning of a data center's critical systems...

(DCIM) is the integration of information technology

Information technology

(IT) and facility management disciplines to centralize monitoring, management and intelligent capacity planning of a data center's critical systems. Achieved through the implementation of specialized software, hardware and sensors, DCIM enables common, real-time monitoring and management platform for all interdependent systems across IT and facility infrastructures.

Depending on the type of implementation, DCIM products can help data center managers identify and eliminate sources of risk to increase availability of critical IT systems. DCIM products also can be used to identify interdependencies between facility and IT infrastructures to alert the facility manager to gaps in system redundancy, and provide dynamic, holistic benchmarks on power consumption and efficiency to measure the effectiveness of “green IT” initiatives.

Applications

The main purpose of a data center is running the applications that handle the core business and operational data of the organization. Such systems may be proprietary and developed internally by the organization, or bought from enterprise software

Enterprise software

Enterprise software, also known as enterprise application software , is software used in organizations, such as in a business or government, contrary to software chosen by individuals...

vendors. Such common applications are ERP

Enterprise resource planning

Enterprise resource planning systems integrate internal and external management information across an entire organization, embracing finance/accounting, manufacturing, sales and service, customer relationship management, etc. ERP systems automate this activity with an integrated software application...

and CRM

Customer relationship management

Customer relationship management is a widely implemented strategy for managing a company’s interactions with customers, clients and sales prospects. It involves using technology to organize, automate, and synchronize business processes—principally sales activities, but also those for marketing,...

systems.

A data center may be concerned with just operations architecture

Operations architecture

Operations architecture allows the ongoing support and management of IT services infrastructure of an enterprise . The IT infrastructure of an enterprise will typically comprise many different systems and platforms, often in different geographic locations...

or it may provide other services as well.

Often these applications will be composed of multiple hosts, each running a single component. Common components of such applications are database

Database

A database is an organized collection of data for one or more purposes, usually in digital form. The data are typically organized to model relevant aspects of reality , in a way that supports processes requiring this information...

s, file server

File server

In computing, a file server is a computer attached to a network that has the primary purpose of providing a location for shared disk access, i.e. shared storage of computer files that can be accessed by the workstations that are attached to the computer network...

s, application server

Application server

An application server is a software framework that provides an environment in which applications can run, no matter what the applications are or what they do...

s, middleware

Middleware

Middleware is computer software that connects software components or people and their applications. The software consists of a set of services that allows multiple processes running on one or more machines to interact...

, and various others.

Data centers are also used for off site backups. Companies may subscribe to backup services provided by a data center. This is often used in conjunction with backup tapes

Tape drive

A tape drive is a data storage device that reads and performs digital recording, writes data on a magnetic tape. Magnetic tape data storage is typically used for offline, archival data storage. Tape media generally has a favorable unit cost and long archival stability.A tape drive provides...

. Backups can be taken of servers locally on to tapes. However, tapes stored on site pose a security threat and are also susceptible to fire and flooding. Larger companies may also send their backups off site for added security. This can be done by backing up to a data center. Encrypted backups can be sent over the Internet to another data center where they can be stored securely.

For quick deployment or disaster recovery

Disaster recovery

Disaster recovery is the process, policies and procedures related to preparing for recovery or continuation of technology infrastructure critical to an organization after a natural or human-induced disaster. Disaster recovery is a subset of business continuity...

, several large hardware vendors have developed mobile solutions that can be installed and made operational in very short time. Companies such as Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems

Cisco Systems, Inc. is an American multinational corporation headquartered in San Jose, California, United States, that designs and sells consumer electronics, networking, voice, and communications technology and services. Cisco has more than 70,000 employees and annual revenue of US$...

, Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems

Sun Microsystems, Inc. was a company that sold :computers, computer components, :computer software, and :information technology services. Sun was founded on February 24, 1982...

(Sun Modular Datacenter

Sun Modular Datacenter

Sun Modular Datacenter is a portable data center built into a standard 20-foot intermodal container manufactured and marketed by Sun Microsystems . An external chiller and power are required for the operation of a Sun MD...

), Bull

Groupe Bull

-External links:* * — Friends, co-workers and former employees of Bull and Honeywell* *...

, IBM

IBM

International Business Machines Corporation or IBM is an American multinational technology and consulting corporation headquartered in Armonk, New York, United States. IBM manufactures and sells computer hardware and software, and it offers infrastructure, hosting and consulting services in areas...

(Portable Modular Data Center

Portable Modular Data Center

The Portable Modular Data Center is a portable data center solution built into a standard 20, 40, or 53-foot intermodal container manufactured and marketed by IBM...

), HP, and Google

Google

(Google Modular Data Center

Google Modular Data center

The Google Modular Data Center is a set of data center containers used by Google as its servers. They were revealed on April 1, 2009, during the first Google Data Center Efficiency Summit in Mountain View, California. The data centers are rumored to cost $600 million USD each, and use from 50 to...

) have developed systems that could be used for this purpose.

External links

Lawrence Berkeley Lab - Research, development, demonstration, and deployment of energy-efficient technologies and practices for data centers
The Uptime Institute - Organization that defines data center reliability and conducts site certifications.
Timelapse BIT2BCD - timelapse video of a data centre building in Ede, Netherlands
Ede, Netherlands
' is a municipality and a town in the center of the Netherlands, in the province of Gelderland.- Population centres :Community :* Bennekom: 14.749* De Klomp: 508* Deelen: 50* Ede : 67.812* Ederveen: 3.167* Harskamp: 3.464...

.
The Neher-McGrath Institute - Organization that certifies data center underground duct bank installation to provide lower operating cost and increased up-time.
DC Power For Data Centers Of The Future - FAQ: 380VDC testing and demonstration at a Sun data center.

The source of this article is wikipedia, the free encyclopedia. The text of this article is licensed under the GFDL.

History

Requirements for modern data centers

Carrier Neutrality

Data center Tiers

Design considerations

Environmental control

Metal Whiskers

Electrical power

Low-voltage cable routing

Fire protection

Security

Energy use

Greenhouse gas emissions

Energy efficiency

Network infrastructure

Data Center Infrastructure Management

Applications

See also

External links