By Brian Bowman, Senior Solutions Architect
From traditional to virtual, we explore the different ways this facility can support your enterprise network.
Ten years ago, the term “data center” had a more simple definition than it does today.
No longer thought of as a simple collection of storage racks, data centers are now home to our most critical assets, as well as a crucial hub in the flow of information (which only continues to grow). And from traditional to virtual, there are many types of data centers available today.
If it’s been a while, it’s worth reviewing which types of data centers you’re using to ensure you’re optimizing costs, performance, and general network efficiency. This blog will explain the types of data centers available, how they function, and where they fit into your network infrastructure.
Unlike server farms, which tend to have simpler infrastructure and are used for a singular function, such as mining cryptocurrency, data centers host everything needed for “mission-critical” Software as a Service (SaaS) products, such as:
Types of data centers include:
In 2019, Gartner predicted, “By 2025, 80% of enterprises will shut down their traditional data centers.” Since then, a lot has happened to speed up this prediction.
The pandemic accelerated a large shift to cloud and as-a-service offerings, which provide scalable, on-demand applications to enterprises that had to adapt to a distributed and remote workforce with quicker network speeds and higher performance than ever before. Nearly five years later, cloud architecture is firmly enmeshed into most companies’ day-to-day operations, virtualizing the data center beyond its basic “brick and mortar” form.
The growth of AI has also led to the automated transit and storage of huge amounts of data. A traditional data center architecture is rarely the fastest or most efficient way to efficiently manage this data. In addition to all this, increasing sustainability demands are pushing businesses to virtualize where they can. With such compelling causes to go virtual, hybrid data center infrastructures have become the norm.
“Virtual” or cloud data centers are a slight misnomer. The cloud is “not a physical entity, but [contains] a group or network of remote servers which are arched together to operate as a single entity for an assigned task.” In other words, virtual data centers still rely on brick and mortar like traditional data centers do. The difference is that while cloud data centers have typical hardware, each physical server contains many virtual servers to maximize available virtual space per piece of hardware.
In every data center, whether traditional or virtual, each component needs to interact seamlessly. Servers have firewall protection and mechanisms to ensure applications deliver where and when they are needed.
They all feature:
Traditional data centers offer the value of internal control, from how they are built to who is allowed access. If your business doesn’t have complex or changing data requirements, they can also contribute to lower latency on applications due to their proximity to users’ devices. You may also prefer a traditional data facility if, for instance, your industry’s regulations make it easier to keep compliant in-house.
But traditional data centers have some drawbacks in comparison to their virtual counterparts:
On the other hand, virtual servers enable Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS), a cloud computing service package. IaaS combines networks, servers, virtualization, and storage products for clients. The scalability and customization of IaaS allows customers to choose storage, bandwidth, security, and application packages depending on their size, budget, and industry.
Depending on the compute processing needs of your business, either a traditional or virtual data center design may make more sense. But hybrid setups aren’t uncommon and, when designed well, offer the best of both worlds.
Source: Park Place Technologies
Data centers need to be physically secure: That is, in a safe location with limited entry points and in nondescript buildings. Managers should establish protocols for who can enter and ensure there is constant surveillance.
Whether traditional or virtual, facilities should invest in zero-trust software systems to lessen the chance of hacker entry at the weakest points. These measures entail firewalls, encryption, and other methods.
Should you adopt a zero-trust network architecture? Learn more here.
When choosing a data center, keep these factors in mind:
To choose how to plug into a virtual data center, enterprises need to weigh costs versus bandwidth needs and other factors, among these three options:
With today’s advances in cloud storage and a renewed focus on green networks, enterprises can mix and match to find the best solutions, changing course as their storage and computing needs shift.
Interconnecting your network comes with a suite of benefits, and this includes your data centers. The best way to reliably interconnect these data centers is to leverage a Network as a Service (NaaS) provider with its own data interconnection solutions, giving you a flexible network underlay to manage these connections at scale.
With Megaport Data Center Interconnect, it’s easy to integrate hundreds of endpoints with simple, fast, and direct campus connections between your key metro locations.
Data center designs are an often-forgotten but powerful way to optimize your overall network. To avoid locking yourself into a purely traditional or purely virtual environment, use a NaaS data interconnection solution to mix and match your data center infrastructure across different regions and functions, ensuring you’re getting the best value for money when it comes to network performance, efficiency, and ease of management.
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