From Data Centre to “Nerve Centre”

For a long time, data centres were simply places to house computing equipment and store information. More recently, however, they’ve come to play a vital role in powering Canadian businesses through processing transactions, continuously backing up critical corporate data, hosting applications and much more.

Today’s data centres are the backbone of cloud-based services and the nerve centres of enterprises around the world. As a result, they’re growing at a breakneck pace. In the next decade, IDC predicts the amount of information managed in data centres is expected to rise by a factor of 50.

Given the increasing importance and complexity of data centres, organizations have a lot to think about when making data centre decisions. Over the next few entries in our blog series we’ll look at the key issues in detail, but at a high level they include:

Reliability – From back-up power to redundant storage, many factors have to be considered to ensure data and applications are available when and where they’re needed.

Security – Data centres need to defend against malware, viruses and other network security threats. They also need their physical premises to be secure against intrusions. In storing and handling data, data centres have to protect individual privacy, follow industry regulations, and comply with the law.

Power – Data centres have traditionally been heavy users of electrical power, making a stable, consistent power supply critical. Today, with rising energy prices and pressure to keep costs low, energy-saving features are in high demand.

Connectivity – Because data centres play a critical role in everyday business, the data that is housed in these centres needs to be accessed quickly and reliably. How organizations connect to their data is therefore every bit as important as the features of the data centre itself. Different connectivity types – such as Ethernet, IP VPN and Wavelength – offer particular advantages depending on an organization’s needs.

Over the coming weeks, we’ll take a closer look at these and other key data centre issues, and share some insights into the kinds of innovations at work in data centres today. In our next post, we’ll put the data centre landscape into context, talking about the different kinds of data centres as well as the various levels of reliability and service level agreements available to back them up.