While it may look like a long row of fridges behind metal grilles, the datacentre is a complex beast.
An evolution of the comms room or server room, a modern datacentre is a completely integrated facility for all core IT systems - from application servers, to routers, to telephony, to storage and archive systems.
By consolidating all the mission-critical systems in one location, datacentres make management and maintenance much easier. IT staff can work from one central location to tackle all core IT issues.
But by moving everything to a central location, the datacentre has also become a potential point of failure - catastrophic failure in the case of enterprises which are highly dependent on IT systems, such as banks or telcos.
|