What Is a Data Center?

What Is a Data Center?

Data centers are an important part of an organization that often gets overlooked. There is a bit of mystery surrounding data centers regarding what they are and what purpose they serve. Are they still prevalent in modern-day times?

Data centers, until fairly recently, were physical buildings or rooms that held an organization’s storage, telecommunication, and computer systems. Along with storing data, these centers were also largely used to process this data. But as technology and the internet has grown increasingly more advanced, so has the way organizations utilize it.

Back when computers were still relatively new, data centers — and data center services — were well secured, as they physically contained vital information to the organizations that ran them. And in the 1970s came the rise of fiber optic internet and fiber networks.

The newfound fiber internet was a game-changer for anyone who was interested in technology and allowed data to be sent from one point to another much faster than before. In this day and age, however, data centers have changed even more drastically from their vintage predecessors.

With the rise of high-speed internet, companies began to require faster internet access. Companies began to ditch their old computers for newer ones. Despite being smaller in size, the new computers were capable of running faster and storing more information than previous computers. Slowly, data centers as people once knew them began to die out.

However, data centers are still very relevant today, and just as important as ever. The difference now is that all of the data that was once stored in a room is now being stored within a virtual server. Now, data centers have expanded widely into the online world. They now function to help companies manage databases, emails and shared files, CRM (customer relationship management), and many more things.

Data centers today are much more available to the public than they were in their beginning stages. Since nearly every company today uses virtual data centers, information and key data are being stored in multiple clouds, both public and private. Data is now consistently being shared through these virtual outlets to help and support companies and businesses. As technology evolves, so does the way society shares information with each other.