Understanding Data Centers & Cloud Computing

Abstract

With today's need for flexibility, competitive edge, and faster time to market, IT organizations must find new solutions that are more efficient and more cost-effective than their past or current solutions. While some larger organizations continue to manage internal data centers, many business managers are able to increase service levels, cover more users, and lower response times by outsourcing their out-dated server farms to third-party data centers and cloud computing providers. This white paper defines data centers and explores cloud networking.

Sample

Introduction

Competitive business environments are putting pressure on IT managers to accomplish more each year with reduced budgets. With the need for flexibility, competitive edge, and faster time to market, IT organizations must find new solutions that are more efficient and more cost-effective than their past or current solutions.

The original data center started as a private server room hosted within the organization's facility containing many individual servers running single applications. In the early days of data centers, most organizations were responsible for maintaining the servers and software, and required a number of personnel resources to manage the servers as well as the facility.

While some larger organizations continue to manage internal data center, many business managers are able to increase service levels, cover more users, and lower response times by outsourcing their out-dated server farms to third-party data centers and cloud computing providers. These third-party data center providers are better equipped to maintain and update server equipment.

This white paper will define data centers and explore cloud networking.

What Is a Data Center?

A data center (sometimes called a server farm) is a centralized repository for the storage, management, and dissemination of data and information. Typically, a data center is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components, such as telecommunications and storage systems. Often times, thereare redundant or backup power supplies, redundant data communications connections, environmental controls, and security devices.

In April 2005, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) produced specification TIA-942: Telecommunications Infrastructure for Data Center. This was the first standard to specifically address data center infrastructure. This standard encompasses all parts of data center design, including cabling, facility, network design, and data center tiers (see sidebar).

One key benefit to the data center is that physical hard drive storage resources are aggregated into storage pools, from which "logical storage" is created. The heterogeneous nature of most storage systems allows many different vendors' storage hardware to be added to the system with little or no noticeable effect (except for the additional storage space). These logical storage spaces can be reached from many different computer systems that share the same pool of storage space. One of the biggest benefits to storage virtualization - other than the obvious ones such as centralized backups and the need for fewer hard drives overall - is the fact that the data can be replicated or migrated to another location transparently to the server using the logical storage point.

One of the not so glamorous or "hi-tech" benefits of the data center is the consolidation of all of the facility resources such as HVAC, electrical, network connections, wiring, hardware, software, and personal. Many corporations have multiple server rooms with duplicated services across their entire organization, all of which are running on duplicated hardware and software platforms. In an attempt to reduce duplication and wasted expense, many corporations are consolidating their server rooms into private data centers, reducing the duplication of hardware, software, and facilities needed to operate their business.

Cloud Computing

Leveraging third-party computing capability over the network is a good way to cut costs, increase scale, and improve agility. The concept of cloud computing involves a data center somewhere in the world, or even multiple data centers scattered around the world. This is a paradigm shift from the historical client-server architecture where the network users owned, maintained, and operated their own network infrastructure, server rooms, data servers, and applications.

Typical cloud computing providers deliver common business applications online that are accessed from web browsers, while the software and data are stored on the servers or SAN devices. These applications are broadly divided into the following categories: Software as a Service (SaaS), Utility Computing, Web Services, Platform as a Service (PaaS), Managed Service Providers (MSP), Service Commerce, and Internet Integration.

These data centers are hosting the servers and applications the clients use to operate their business.

This structure reduces capital expenditures, since by renting from a third-party provider to provide the services on a peruse fee the business only pays for the resources used.

Some Cloud providers employ a utility computing model, meaning they bill clients like a utility such as an electrical company. Others bill on a subscription basis. In either case, the customer gains the security of a service level agreement (SLA) as well as the saved expense of hiring an IT staff to maintain a local server farm.

There are many resources available in a data center and in the cloud that a client can purchase or rent, such as processing time, network bandwidth, disk storage, and memory. The users of the cloud do not need to know where the data center is, or have any expertise on how to operate or maintain the resources in the cloud. Clients only need to know how to connect to the resources and how to use the applications needed to perform their jobs.