FEATURE
DATA CENTERS A New Technological Revolution and a Strawberry
BY DEREK WEBSTER
W
hen I went to school I had books and access to a Library. My children went to school with Laptops and access to the Internet. That is a revolution in just one generation which has social and industrial impact. The revolutionary connected infrastructure that delivered that revolution is predominantly fibre, the nervous system of the internet. We hear the term ‘Cloud’ and the perception that data and processing is performed in the ether. In reality, the ‘Cloud is on the ground’ and mainly in specialized facilities call Data Centers. The Cloud and the Internet would not be able to function without Data Centers which are the heart and lungs supporting all infrastructure includ-
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SUBMARINE TELECOMS MAGAZINE
ing the CPU brains inside servers within rack enclosures. What is a Data Center? I do not want to quote the Wikipedia definition of a ‘Data Centre 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.’ The question of ‘what is’ I want to expand as follows: “a Data Centre is” • Data Driven Critical infrastructure • A Data Factory that processes digital workloads • Moving Photons & Electrons (the Strawberry) processing Applications & Services