Data center

ARSAT data center (2014)

A data center (American English)[1] or data centre (Commonwealth English)[2][note 1] is a building, a dedicated space within a building, or a group of buildings[3] used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems.[4][5]

Since IT operations are crucial for business continuity, it generally includes redundant or backup components and infrastructure for power supply, data communication connections, environmental controls (e.g., air conditioning, fire suppression), and various security devices. A large data center is an industrial-scale operation using as much electricity as a small town.[6] Estimated global data center electricity consumption in 2022 was 240-340 TWh, or roughly 1-1.3% of global electricity demand. This excludes energy used for cryptocurrency mining, which was estimated to be around 110 TWh in 2022, or another 0.4% of global electricity demand.[7]

Data centers can vary widely in terms of size, power requirements, redundancy, and overall structure. Four common categories used to segment types of data centers are onsite data centers, colocation facilities, hyperscale data centers, and edge data centers.[8]

  1. ^ "An Oregon Mill Town Learns to Love Facebook and Apple". The New York Times. March 6, 2018.
  2. ^ "Google announces London cloud computing data centre". BBC.com. July 13, 2017.
  3. ^ "Cloud Computing Brings Sprawling Centers, but Few Jobs". The New York Times. August 27, 2016. data center .. a giant .. facility .. 15 of these buildings, and six more .. under construction
  4. ^ "From Manhattan to Montvale". The New York Times. April 20, 1986.
  5. ^ Ashlee Vance (December 8, 2008). "Dell Sees Double With Data Center in a Container". The New York Times.
  6. ^ James Glanz (September 22, 2012). "Power, Pollution and the Internet". The New York Times. Retrieved 2012-09-25.
  7. ^ "Data centres & networks". IEA. Retrieved 2023-10-07.
  8. ^ "Types of Data Centers | How do you Choose the Right Data Center?". Maysteel Industries, LLC. Retrieved 2023-10-07.


Cite error: There are <ref group=note> tags on this page, but the references will not show without a {{reflist|group=note}} template (see the help page).