Technology has changed according to the requirement of business and also the world economy at large as dependence on data has been manifold over the past few years. In an age of growing and flourishing online business activities, it is imperative to say that technologies which are loaded on cloud platforms are in demand due to their resilience and conveniences.
Gone are those days where companies used to invest huge sums of money in building in-house IT infrastructure. Moreover, rather than a few huge corporate houses, even SMB’s can do profitable businesses because of the kind of reach social media has presented them. Even a small-scaled company can reach a global audience without investing hugely on advertisements and promotions, thanks to amazing social media platforms.
The pertinent question for any business is whether you need a data center. To access this it is required that we understand in dept what exactly is a data center and its capabilities. To give a clear and concise explanation we can explain data center as a centralized repository which maybe that in context can be a physical or a virtual infrastructure housing computer systems for management, storage, and dissemination of information and data organized around a business entity.
Hence a data center is a facility that manages the IT operations of an organization in the most secure manner by using the best state of the art systems where all your data is stored securely in the most retrievable manner. It can be said to be a home to your most critical systems that can be vital for the smooth conduct of several key daily operations. Scalability and resilience are the key elements that have made many companies to take the crucial step to migrate to a data center facility as it helps them manage their business-critical data securely and with a high degree of reliability.
A data center can be classified generally into either Internet-which supports few applications or Enterprise data center which is a custom shelf of applications. Choosing the right data center is crucial as it has direct consequences to the way your business operates and be conducted. There are various types of a data center which can have can localized difference and also independent security measures. To make a perfect choice of the type of data center that best suits your business one needs to understand the concept of Tiers.
Tiers, or levels, are ways to differentiate the requirements of each type of data center operator, with a focus on redundant components, critical load distribution paths, cooling, and many other specifications.
At present, there are 4 levels of data centers that are defined as Tier1, Tier2, Tier3 and Tier 4. The entity which is responsible for this categorization is the Global Data Center Authority’s “Uptime Institute” and is responsible for the proprietary “Tier Standard System”. Uptime is the fundamental metric when its regarding web hosting, though it cannot be defined as the only benchmark for accessing data centers capabilities.
