Data center - what is it? Data processing center. What is a data center in a real-world example? Data center what

In the modern sense, a data center, or data processing center (DPC), is a complex organizational and technical solution designed to create a high-performance and fault-tolerant information infrastructure. In a narrower sense, a data center is a room designed to house equipment for processing and storing data and providing a connection to fast communication channels. In order to fully reveal the essence of the concept of a data center, let's start with the history of its origin.

In principle, computing centers, familiar to many from EC machines, which became widespread in our country 30 years ago, are, in a sense, the progenitors of modern data centers. Common to today's data centers and old computing centers is the idea of resource consolidation. At the same time, the computer centers had rather complex subsystems to provide the necessary computing technology environment, which consisted of cooling, power, security, etc. subsystems, many of which are used in modern data centers.

With the proliferation of PCs in the mid-1980s, there was a tendency towards the dispersal of computing facilities - desktop computers did not require special conditions, and therefore, less and less attention was paid to providing a special environment for computing equipment. However, with the development of client-server architecture in the late 90s, it became necessary to install servers in special rooms - server rooms. It often happened that the servers were located on the square of the old exhibition centers. Around this time, the term “data center” appeared, applied to specially designed computer rooms.

The heyday of data centers came during the dot-com boom. Companies that needed fast Internet access and business continuity began to design special premises that provide increased security for data processing and transmission - Internet Data Centers. Since all modern data centers provide Internet access, the first word in the name has been abolished. Over time, a separate scientific direction appeared, which deals with the optimization of the construction and operation of data centers.

At the beginning of the 21st century, many large companies both abroad and in our country came to the need to implement a data center - for some, ensuring business continuity became paramount, for others, data center solutions turned out to be very effective due to savings in operating costs. Many large companies have found that a centralized computing model provides the best TCO.

Over the past decade, many large IT companies have acquired an entire network of data centers. For example, the oldest global operator Cable & Wireless in 2002 bought the American company Digital Island, the owner of 40 data centers around the world, and the European operator Interoute in 2005 acquired the operator and hosting provider PSINet, connecting 24 data centers to its pan-European network.

The practice of applying risk-based approaches to doing business stimulates the use of data centers. Companies have begun to realize that investing in the uptime of critical IT systems is far less costly for many businesses than the potential cost of data loss as a result of a disruption. The introduction of data centers is also facilitated by the adoption of laws requiring mandatory redundancy of IT systems, the emergence of recommendations for the application of the IT infrastructure outsourcing model, the need to protect businesses from natural and man-made disasters.

Separate data centers began to occupy all used O Larger territories. For example, recently it was reported that Google intends to build a large data center in the state of Iowa with an area of 22.3 hectares, spending $ 600 million on it, which will start working in the spring of 2009.

In Russia, the construction of a data center (in the modern sense of this term) began at the end of the last - the beginning of the new century. One of the first large Russian data centers was the Sberbank Center. Today, many commercial structures have their own data centers (primarily financial organizations and large operators communication).

At the same time, reputable Russian Internet companies already have several data centers. For example, in September of this year, a message appeared that Yandex opened a new (already the fourth in a row) data center for 3 thousand servers (occupied area - 2 thousand square meters, supplied capacity - 2 MW). The new complex is equipped with precision cooling systems, allowing to remove up to 10 kW from the rack, sources uninterruptible power supply and diesel generators. The data center is connected to Yandex's Moscow optical ring, which connects other data centers and Yandex offices, as well as to M9 and M10, traditional points of traffic exchange with providers.

Simultaneously Russian operator Synterra announced the beginning of one of the most major projects(not only by Russian, but also by European standards) - the construction of a national network of its own data centers. The project was named "40x40". Having created large data centers at the nodes of the broadband network in most regions of Russia, the operator intends to turn them into points of localization of customers and sales of the entire range of services.

Until mid-2009, newly created data centers will open in 44 centers of the constituent entities of the Federation. The first will be Moscow, St. Petersburg, Kazan, Samara and Chelyabinsk. The operator plans that the first 20 sites will be commissioned by the end of 2008, the rest by mid-2009. The project integrators are Croc, Technoserv A / S and Integrated Service Group (ISG).

The area of each data center, depending on the needs of the region, will vary from 500 to 1000 square meters on a raised floor and accommodate 200-300 technological racks. The data center should be connected to two rings of the network with a total bandwidth of 4x10 Gbps channels, which will provide customers with a high level of redundancy and availability of services.

The "40x40" project is aimed at a wide range of clients who need to outsource IT infrastructure throughout the country - telecom operators, "network" corporate clients, content and application developers, IP-TV operators and television companies, as well as government agencies responsible for the implementation of national ICT programs.

Not only commercial, but also state structures, such as the Ministry of Internal Affairs, the Ministry of Emergency Situations and the Federal Tax Service, have their own data centers in our country.

According to IDC, the number of data centers in the United States will reach 7,000 by 2009 - as companies move from distributed computing to centralized ones.

Along with the construction of new data centers, the problem of modernizing old ones is on the agenda. According to Gartner, by 2009, 70% of data center equipment will no longer meet operational and performance requirements unless upgraded accordingly. The average time for updating computer equipment in a data center is approximately three years. The data center infrastructure is designed taking into account a service life of about 15 years.

Purpose and structure of the data center

Depending on the purpose, modern data centers can be divided into corporate, which operate within a specific company, and data centers, providing services to third-party users.

For example, a bank may have a data center where information on transactions of its users is stored - it usually does not provide services to third-party users. Even if the data center does not provide such services, it can be separated into a separate organizational structure of the company and provide it with services for access to information services based on SLA. Many large companies have data centers of one kind or another, while international companies can have dozens of data centers.

The data center can also be used to provide professional IT outsourcing services on commercial terms.

All data center systems consist of the actual IT infrastructure and engineering infrastructure, which is responsible for maintaining optimal conditions for the functioning of the system.

IT infrastructure

A modern data processing center (DPC) includes a server complex, a data storage system, an operation system and a system information security, which are integrated with each other and united by a high-performance LAN (Fig. 1).

Rice. 1. IT infrastructure of a modern data center

Let's consider the organization of the server complex and data storage system.

Data center server complex

The most promising model of a server complex is a model with a multi-tier architecture, in which several groups of servers are distinguished (see Fig. 1):

resource servers, or servers information resources are responsible for storing and providing data to application servers; for example, file servers;
application servers perform data processing in accordance with the business logic of the system; for example, servers running SAP R / 3 modules;
presentation servers provide an interface between users and application servers; for example, web servers;
service servers support the operation of other data center subsystems; e.g. system management servers Reserve copy.

Different requirements are imposed on servers of different groups depending on their operating conditions. In particular, servers for presenting information are characterized by a large flow short queries from users, so they must scale well (more servers) to ensure load balancing.

For application servers, the horizontal scalability requirement remains, but it is not critical. They require sufficient vertical scalability (the ability to increase the number of processors, RAM and I / O channels) to process multiplexed requests from users and perform the business logic of the tasks being solved.

Storage systems

The most promising solution for organizing a data storage system (DSS) is SAN (Storage Area Network) technology, which provides fault-tolerant server access to storage resources and reduces the total cost of ownership of IT infrastructure due to the possibility of optimal online management of server access to storage resources.

The storage system consists of information storage devices, servers, a control system and a communication infrastructure that provides physical connection between the elements of a data storage network (Fig. 2).

Rice. 2. Data storage system based on SAN technology

This architecture allows for uninterrupted and secure data storage and data exchange between the elements of the storage network.

At the heart of the SAN concept is the ability to connect any server to any Fiber Channel (FC) storage device. The technical backbone of the SAN is made up of fiber-optic connections, FC-HBAs and FC-switches, currently providing 200 MB / s transfer rates.

The use of SAN as a transport basis for a storage system allows for dynamic reconfiguration (adding new devices, changing existing configurations and maintaining them) without stopping the system, and also ensures fast regrouping of devices in accordance with changing requirements and rational use of production space.

High speed data transfer over SAN (200 MB / s) allows real-time replication of changing data to a backup center or to remote storage. Convenient SAN administration tools allow you to reduce the number of service personnel, which reduces the cost of maintaining the storage subsystem.

Adaptive data center engineering infrastructure

In addition to the hardware and software complex itself, the data center must provide external conditions for its functioning. The equipment located in the data center must operate around the clock under certain environmental parameters, the maintenance of which requires whole line reliable support systems.

A modern data center has more than a dozen different subsystems, including main and backup power, low-current, power and other types of wiring, climate control systems, fire safety, physical security, etc.

It is quite difficult to ensure the optimal climatic conditions of the equipment. It is necessary to remove a large amount of heat generated by computer equipment, and its volume increases as the power of the systems and their density increases. All this requires the optimization of air flows, as well as the use of cooling equipment. According to IDC, already this year, the cost of supplying data centers with electricity and providing cooling will exceed the cost of the actual computer equipment.

The listed systems are interconnected, so the optimal solution can be found only if, when building it, not individual components are considered, but the infrastructure as a whole.

Designing, building and operating a data center is a very complex and time-consuming process. There are many companies offering necessary equipment- both computer and auxiliary, but to build an individual solution, you cannot do without the help of integrators. A number of large domestic system integrators, such as IBS Croc OpenTechnologies, as well as specialized companies: DataDome, IntelinePro, etc., are involved in the creation of data centers in Russia.

Data center and IT outsourcing

According to IDC, the global market for hosting services alone in the data center is growing very rapidly and by 2009 will amount to $ 22-23 billion.

The most comprehensive IT outsourcing service is information systems outsourcing. It is provided under a long-term agreement under which the service provider takes full control of all or a significant part of the customer's IT infrastructure, including hardware and software installed on it. These are projects with a broad involvement of the performer, which assume responsibility for the systems, network and individual applications that make up the IT infrastructure. Usually outsourcing of IT infrastructure is formalized with long-term contracts that last more than a year.

To create their own IT infrastructure from scratch, companies need large funds and highly paid specialists. Lease of data center infrastructure allows you to reduce TCO by sharing resources between clients, provides access to the latest technology, give a chance rapid deployment offices with the ability to expand resources. For many companies, the reliability of the uninterrupted operation of equipment and network infrastructure is becoming a critical factor for the functioning of the business today. Outsourcing of IT infrastructure allows you to provide a high level of data reliability at a limited cost, providing customers with the opportunity to rent server racks and rack spaces for placing customer equipment (co-location), rent a dedicated server, licensed software, data transmission channels, and also receiving technical support.

The customer is freed from a variety of procedures: technical support and equipment administration, organization of round-the-clock security of premises, monitoring network connections, data backup, anti-virus software scanning, etc.

The data center can also provide an outsourced application management service. This allows customers to use certified professionals, which guarantees a high level of service. software products and provides an easy transition from one software to another with minimal financial costs.

In the application outsourcing mode, data center customers can outsource mail systems, Internet resources, data storage systems or databases.

By outsourcing their corporate systems for redundancy, customers reduce the risk of losing critical information by using professional systems for restoring the operability of IT systems, and in the event of an accident, they get the opportunity to insure information risks.

Typically, data center customers are offered several levels of business continuity. In the simplest case, this is the placement of backup systems in a data center with adequate protection. In addition, there may be an option in which the client is also provided with the rental of software and hardware complexes for backup. The most complete service option involves the development of a full-scale disaster recovery plan (DRP), which includes an audit of the customer's information systems, risk analysis, development of a disaster recovery plan, creation and maintenance backup systems, as well as the provision of an equipped office space to continue working in the event of an emergency in the main office.

Examples of commercial data centers

Data Centers Stack Data Network

The Stack Data Network unites three data centers built on the basis of foreign experience.

Two of them (Stack data center and M1 data center) with a total capacity of 700 racks are located in Moscow, and the third (PSN data center) with a capacity of 100 racks is 100 km from the capital.

There are partnership agreements with a number of European data centers on the possibility of using their resources through the Stack Data Network.

Stack Data Network data centers provide business continuity service - disaster recovery, as well as high-quality hosting: collocation service - server placement (Fig. 3) and dedicated server service - dedicated server (Fig. 4).

Rice. 3. Data Center Stack: Server Placement
(server collocation)

Rice. 4. Data center Stack: rent a dedicated server

Data centers have autonomous power supply systems with uninterruptible power supplies and powerful diesel generator sets (Fig. 5), climate control and air conditioning systems (Fig. 6), systems for round-the-clock monitoring of the state of infrastructure elements and gas fire extinguishing systems. To ensure the reliability of life support systems, all systems are redundant according to the N + 1 scheme. A special security regime is achieved through multiple access perimeters using individual plastic magnetic cards, a biometric access control system, a video surveillance system and motion sensors.

Rice. 5. Data Center Stack: Diesel Generator

Rice. 6. Data Center Stack: Liebert Air Conditioner

The network of data centers Stack Data Network has a round-the-clock maintenance service (operators on duty and specialists), including for life support systems. There are systems for round-the-clock monitoring of life support systems, telecommunications and server equipment, networks and the state of communication channels. The data centers are connected to the main telecommunication centers in Moscow and are interconnected by their own redundant fiber-optic communication lines.

Sun Microsystems Introduces New Data Center-in-a-Box Concept

The process of creating traditional data centers is very costly and time-consuming. To speed it up, Sun Microsystems has come up with a solution called Blackbox.

The Blackbox system is mounted in a standard length shipping container that can hold up to 120 SunFire T2000 servers or 250 SunFire T1000 servers (2 thousand cores in total) or up to 250 SunFire x64 servers (thousand cores), as well as storage systems, capacity which can go up to 1.5 PB per hard drives and up to 2 PB on tapes. Up to 30 thousand Sun Ray terminals can be connected to the container.

The system is running Solaris 10.

The equipment is placed very tightly in the container; there is simply no room for air circulation. In this regard, air cooling is extremely ineffective, therefore water cooling is used.

According to SUN, placing equipment inside a shipping container can reduce the cost of computing power per unit area by a factor of five compared to a conventional data center.

The Blackbox solution is at least an order of magnitude cheaper than a traditional data center organization, while it provides a multiple acceleration of the installation process.

It should be noted that such a center cannot be implemented everywhere, since not every building can be filled with such a container. The sale of the ball solution started this year.

Data center IBS DataFort

In 2001, IBS and Cable & Wireless announced the beginning of providing Russian and foreign companies with complex services under the ASP scheme within the framework of the joint DATA FORT project based on a data center. A little later, DATA FORT healed on its own, and in 2003 IBS announced the launch of its own DC, which belongs to a subsidiary of IBS - IBS DataFort. Data center IBS DataFort is focused on serving clients with critical requirements for privacy and data protection, provides a high degree of data availability, modern hardware and software, reliable power supply, high-speed data transmission channels and a high level of technical support. The perimeter is heavily guarded (Fig. 7).

Rice. 7. Protected area of the IBS DataFort data center

Inside the building there is a technical module with an area of more than 130 square meters, a two-storey backup office with an area of about 150 square meters, and an operator station. To prevent the risks of floods and fires, the technical module of the data center is built of steel sandwich panels and raised half a meter above the floor level (Fig. 8).

Rice. 8. Technical module of the data center IBS DataFort

The technical module is a fireproof, earthquake-resistant structure equipped with a high-strength raised floor, waterproofing and grounding systems. The module is designed for 1500 Rack-servers located in 19-inch APC industrial racks.

An automatic gas fire extinguishing system is installed in the data center, consisting of the equipment Fire Eater, Shrak and GOS Inergen, light and sound alarms (warning about gas start-up and requiring to leave the data center premises), as well as an effective smoke removal system (Fig. . nine).

Rice. 9. Fire extinguishing systems of the data center
IBS DataFort

The climate control system (Fig. 10) consists of industrial air conditioners with automatic maintenance of the set temperature in the region of 22 ± 0.5 ° C and humidity at the level of 50 ± 5%, switched on according to the N + 1 scheme (in case of failure of one of the air conditioners, the calculated parameters of the entire system are not violated). Fresh air inflow from the street is carried out using a special installation that prevents the penetration of dust into the data center.

Rice. 10. Climate control system
data center IBS DataFort

IBS DataFort specializes in integrated IT outsourcing services, taking over all the functions of the customer's IT departments, and offers the following types of services:

outsourcing of IT infrastructure - placing the customer's equipment or leasing the infrastructure of the data center, ensuring the operability of corporate information systems;
application management - skilled administration and management of various applications;
outsourcing of IT personnel - provision of qualified specialists to solve various IT tasks;
ensuring business continuity - the organization of fault-tolerant solutions for the recovery of information systems after accidents and failures;
IT consulting and audit - audit and inventory services in the field of IT, as well as the construction of industrial technologies for the operation of IT systems;
functional outsourcing - management of individual IT functions according to agreed standards and an approved level of service.

Data processing center (DPC)- a single multicomponent system, which is designed to ensure the smooth automated operation of business processes. Data centers are created primarily to increase the productivity of companies that actively use information technology in their activities, as well as to improve the quality of services provided.

To store and process a large amount of information, specialized technical solutions, powerful servers, and disk storages are used. Create and maintain such technical systems it is quite difficult and expensive on its own: the maintenance of servers requires special technical conditions, separate premises and qualified personnel. One of the main purposes of data centers is precisely to create suitable conditions for placing such technical solutions.

Business Benefits

The creation of multi-component systems that solve most of the problems in business can greatly reduce the costs of enterprises. In particular, for companies with geographically distributed infrastructure, this is an irreplaceable solution, since 1–2 employees serving data centers are successfully replaced by many people working in offices in the regions. Subsequently, many entrepreneurs thought about acquiring data centers due to the fact that it was necessary to integrate a large amount of information together. The risk of losing certain information irrevocably became very high and led to certain costs for recovering information. In addition, there were risks of losing part of the income due to downtime for various reasons. That is, due to its unique features, the data center provides efficient and uninterrupted operation of any organization.

The advantage of a data center is that a person or a company can, from anywhere in the world, using any device for accessing the network, work with the necessary and sufficient computing power, the required amount of memory, all the necessary software which will work and be stored on servers in the data center.

Traditional services in data centers: rack rental, server placement, Internet connection, communication channels rental, software installation, configuration, administration. Currently, they are supplemented by the lease of computing power, virtual servers, disk space for data backup, and lease of applications.

Reliability of information storage. Moreover, this reliability is confirmed both by the architecture laid down at the design stage and by subsequent operation. Interesting fact that at detailed comparison the cost of owning an information system located at the customer's site (as a rule, it is a business center) and in a data center, quite comparable figures are obtained, which cannot be said about comparing the reliability of these methods.

Reducing the time spent on the implementation of new IT projects. When working in a data center, companies independently choose the services they want to receive. The most popular are renting a rack, a unit, a ready-made server, a virtual server, and data backup. But besides this, there are a number of other services that tenant companies can use if necessary, which will significantly save time for launching a new IT project. For example, this is the rental of applications, allowing you to avoid large-scale investments at the initial stage of work. An example is the lease of 1C accounting - to deploy a ready-made system suitable for work, it is enough to order and pay for such a service in the data center. At the same time, often in the customer's office, there is no need to buy, install or configure anything, except for access to the Internet.

Reducing the cost of renting premises. This includes the cost of electricity, office space used for "server rooms", and maintenance of their own cooling systems and uninterruptible power supplies. By the way, the equipment bought in the office becomes the main assets of the enterprise, property tax is charged on them.

Organization of continuous work of the head office with branches of the company throughout the country. access to work information regardless of the location of the employee. For example, the head of the company can, while on vacation, check work mail, contact his employees via IP-telephony.

The ability to create a backup office of the organization, if for some reason work in the main office is impossible, but it is necessary to obtain important information, complete the project

reducing the cost of purchasing applications. To strengthen their competitive position, the owners of data centers are developing a new range of services that can be offered to tenants.

The first to use data centers in their work were large foreign companies. Russian entrepreneurs followed them. The first owners of a data center appeared in the Russian Federation in 2000-2001. The pioneer was Sberbank of Russia. It is he who is the most geographically distributed organization. That is, the need to create multiple data integration was high. Later, large oil companies also acquired their own data centers.

Data center types

Depending on the purpose, there are three different types of data centers, each of which is designed for a specific model of the enterprise and has its own operational tasks and problems:

corporate data centers;
hosting data centers providing computer infrastructure as a service (IaaS);
data centers using Web 2.0 technology.

Below are the parameters that can vary significantly in different types of data centers:

traffic type (internal, external or mixed);
using Layer 2 (L2) and / or Layer 3 (L3) for traffic management in the center or at the periphery (Top of Rack);
data storage technology;
server virtualization level;
the total size of the data center (by number of servers).

Data center creation and modernization

Data center components

Traditional data center

The mandatory components that make up a data center can be divided into three main groups:

1. Technical components... They create conditions for effective work center. These include:

server complex, includes servers of information resources, applications, information presentation, as well as service servers
data storage and backup system - the core of the data center. It consists of consolidating disk arrays, storage area networks, data backup and disaster recovery systems
network infrastructure provides interaction between servers, combines logical levels and organizes communication channels. It includes backbones for communication with operators general access, telecommunications, providing connection of users with the data center
the engineering system of the data center operation maintains the conditions for the normal functioning of the center. It includes subsystems of power supply, climate control, fire alarm and fire extinguishing, data transmission, and automated systems dispatching, information resource management
security system prevents unauthorized intrusion into areas of confidential information. It consists of protective equipment, a warning system and an access control system.

2. Software... These are actually services of the data center infrastructure and software for the correct operation of business processes required for a particular organization. Infrastructure components include:

server operating systems;
database software;
operating systems of workstations;
clustering tools;
backup tools;
storage device programs;
server and workstation administration tools;
inventory tools;
office software;
Email;
Internet browsers.

The programs responsible for the functioning of business processes include:

business applications;
basic corporate information services;
Collaboration apps
industry components;
software for solving problems of the design and technological plan of the system electronic archive and project management;
programs that provide services for files, printing, directory services and other applications.

3. Organizational environment solves issues related to the provision of IT services. It must meet the requirements for the provision of IT services such as ISO / IEC 20000. Here are:

service delivery processes, that is, the quality and availability of services;
processes of relationships between the supplier and the client, as well as with contractors;
processes for solving problems arising during the functioning of any of the system components;
configuration management processes, monitoring and control of the status of IT infrastructure, inventory, verification and registration of configuration items, collection and management of documentation, provision of information about the IT infrastructure for all other processes;
change management processes, that is, determining the necessary changes and how to carry them out with the lowest risk for IT services, as well as consulting and coordinating actions with the organization as a whole;
release processes, that is, joint testing and introduction into the active activity of the organization of a number of configuration items.

Software Data Center

In a software data center, we implement the entire environment in the form software modules v virtual machines- virtual appliance. The idea is that only servers and switches are physically used. Everything else is implemented in the form of virtual machines - virtual appliance.

In the world of service providers, this technology is known and even standardized under the name NFV - Network Function Virtualization - virtualization of network functions. Only there it is used to provide services and, accordingly, a lot of attention is paid to orchestration and management tools, integration with OSS systems, which allows automating the process of creating services for each of the subscribers. In a corporate data center, so often the composition of services does not need to be changed, the level of automation can be significantly lower, but the transfer of all network functions to virtual machines still provides significant benefits.

Types of data centers

All data centers can be roughly divided into several types:

Large data centers have their own building, specially designed to provide the best conditions for placement. They usually have their own communication channels to which the servers are connected.
Medium data centers usually lease a site of a certain size and channels of a certain width (channel width is measured by its bandwidth in Mbps).
Small data centers are located in unsuitable premises. In general, equipment of poor quality is used, and the very minimum of services is provided.

Data center structure and description

A typical data center consists of information infrastructure, which includes server equipment and provides the main functions of the data center - processing and storing information; telecommunications infrastructure ensuring the interconnection of the elements of the data center, as well as the transfer of data between the data center and users; engineering infrastructure ensuring the normal functioning of the main systems of the data center. The engineering infrastructure includes precision air conditioning to maintain temperature and humidity levels within specified parameters; uninterrupted and guaranteed power supply ensures the autonomous operation of the data center in cases of disconnection of central power sources, and also improves the quality of power supply; security and fire alarm and gas fire extinguishing system; access control and monitoring systems.

Some data centers offer customers additional services for the use of equipment for automatic cleaning different types attacks. Teams of qualified specialists monitor all servers around the clock. It should be noted that data center services differ greatly in price and number of services. To ensure the safety of data, we use backup systems copying. To prevent data theft, data centers use various systems restrictions on physical access, video surveillance systems. In corporate (departmental) data centers, most of the servers of the corresponding organization are usually concentrated. The equipment is mounted in specialized racks. As a rule, the data center accepts only equipment in rackmount design, that is, in standard-sized enclosures adapted for rack mounting. Computers in desktop cases are not convenient for data centers and are rarely located in them. A datacenter is a room, floor or an entire building, usually located within or in the immediate vicinity of a communications center or point of presence of one or more operators. The power supply, ventilation and fire extinguishing systems of the data center are distinguished by increased reliability and redundancy. Of course, there must be physical protection and a special regime of admission to the technological premises. A number of countries have special standards for the equipment of data center premises. There is no such standard in Russia yet, data centers are equipped in accordance with the requirements for communication facilities... There is an American (ANSI) standard TIA-942, which contains recommendations for creating data centers, and dividing data centers into types according to the degree of reliability. In fact, TIA-942 is perceived worldwide as a single standard for data centers.

Data center services

Shared hosting. Provision of a limited part of disk space, processor time, RAM to the client for use. Large data centers usually do not provide such a mass service due to the need to provide technical and consulting support. When using shared hosting, one physical server is shared between many clients (hundreds or thousands). Each client is not guaranteed any resource allocation, but the maximum is strictly limited. Clients cannot configure the server anymore. Shared hosting has two main advantages: low cost and ease of site management. For these reasons, shared hosting is mostly used by individuals.
VDS) -hosting - Provision of a guaranteed and limited part of the server (part of all resources). An important feature of this type of hosting is the division of the server into several virtual independent servers implemented by software.
hosting - Server rent (Dedicated). The data center provides the client with a server for rent in various configurations. Large data centers mainly specialize in these types of services. Depending on the country where the data center is located, there are different traffic restrictions.
Server placement (Colocation). Hosting a client's server at the data center site for a fee. The cost depends on the energy consumption and heat dissipation of the placed equipment, bandwidth the data link connected to the equipment; and the size and weight of the rack.
Dedicated area. In some cases, the owners of the data center set aside a portion of the technology space for special clients, usually financial companies with strict internal security standards. In this case, the data center provides a certain dedicated area, provided with communication channels, power supply, refrigeration and security systems, and the client himself creates his own data center inside this space.

Network infrastructure

Today, data center communications are most often based on networks using the IP protocol. The data center contains a number of routers and switches that manage traffic between servers and the outside world. For reliability, the data center is sometimes connected to the Internet using many different external channels from different ISPs.

Some of the servers in the data center are used to run the basic Internet and intranet services that are used within the organization: mail servers, proxy, DNS, etc.

The network level of security is supported by: firewalls, IDS systems, etc. Traffic monitoring systems and some applications are also used.

Notes (edit)

Data center for the management of priority national projects- information technology and software data processing center technical complex ensuring the automation of the procedures for the formation, maintenance, storage and operational presentation of complete and reliable ... Official terminology

modular data center (DPC)- [Intent] Parallel Texts EN RU Data Centers are a hot topic these days. No ... ... Technical translator's guide

To tie? The underground data center is located in the Grizinkalns park in Riga (Latvia), and belongs to the operator ... Wikipedia

- (mobile data center) or container data processing center (container data center) (from the English Container Data Center), a data processing center located in a specialized transport container with a complex of information ... Wikipedia

dynamic data center“Dynamic Data Centers are a next-generation hardware and software architecture concept. Its main principles are to provide services to end users and ensure compliance with level agreements ... ... Technical translator's guide

internet data center- A company that provides hosting services for computing platforms and simple Internet services with a few advanced services. Data center topics (data processing centers) EN internet data ... ... Technical translator's guide

- (IDPC) a specialized mobile room with a complex of information, telecommunication and engineering infrastructure located inside, connected to communication channels and intended for storing and processing information, as well as providing ... ... Wikipedia

The era of computers is more than 50 years old, respectively, the infrastructure of their life support is the same. The first computer systems were very complex to use and maintain, requiring a special integrated infrastructure to function.

An incredible number of cables connected various subsystems, and many technical solutions were developed to organize them, which are still used today: equipment racks, raised floors, cable trays, etc. In addition, cooling systems were required to prevent overheating. And since the first computers were military, security issues and restrictions came first. In the future, computers became smaller, cheaper, more unpretentious and penetrated into a wide variety of industries. At the same time, the need for infrastructure disappeared, and computers began to be placed anywhere.

The revolution took place in the 90s, after the spread of the client-server model. Those computers, which began to be considered as servers, began to be placed in separate rooms with a prepared infrastructure. The names of these rooms in English sounded like Computer room, Server room, Data Center, while in the Soviet Union we called them "Machine rooms" or " Computing Centers". After the collapse of the USSR and the popularization of English terminology, our computer centers turned into “server rooms” and “Data Processing Centers” (DPC). Are there any fundamental differences between these concepts, or is it just a matter of terminology?

The first thing that comes to mind is the scale: if small, then server room, and if large, then data center. Or: if there are only own servers inside, then this is a server room; and if server hosting services are provided to third-party companies, then a data center. Is it so? Let's turn to standards for the answer.

Standards and criteria

The most widespread standard currently describing the device of data centers is the American TIA 942. Unfortunately, there is no Russian analogue, the Soviet CH 512-78 has long been hopelessly outdated (although there was a version of 2000), it can only be considered in terms of general approaches.

TIA 942 itself states that the purpose of its creation is to formulate requirements and guidelines for the design and installation of a data center or computer room. We will assume that the data center is something that meets the requirements of TIA 942, and the server room is just a kind of room with servers.

So, the TIA 942 standard classifies 4 levels (TIERs) of the data center and names a number of parameters by which this classification can be carried out. For example, I decided to check if my server room, built together with the factory three years ago, is a real data center.

As a small digression, I will point out that the plant is engaged in the manufacture of stamped parts for the automotive industry. We make body parts for companies like Ford and GM. The enterprise itself is small (the total staff is about 150 people), but with a very high level automation: the number of robots is comparable to the number of workers in the workshop. The main difference between our production is the rhythm of Just-In-Time, that is, we cannot afford a delay, including due to the fault of IT systems. IT is business critical.

The server room was designed to meet the needs of the plant, it was not supposed to provide services to third-party companies, and accordingly, certification for compliance with any standards was not required. However, since our plant is a member of a large international holding, design and construction were carried out in accordance with internal corporate standards. And these standards, at least in part, are based on international ones.

The TIA 942 standard is very extensive and describes in detail the approaches to the design and construction of data centers. In addition, in the appendix to it there is a large table with more than two hundred parameters for correspondence to the four levels of the data center. Naturally, it is inappropriate to consider them all in the context of this topic, and some of them, for example, such as "Separate parking lots for visitors and employees", "Thickness of a concrete slab at ground level" and "Proximity to airports" are not very directly related to the classification Data centers and even more so their difference from the server room. Therefore, we will consider only the most important, in my opinion, parameters.

Basic parameters of data center classification

The standard establishes criteria of two categories - mandatory and recommended. Mandatory are indicated by the word "shall" (shall), recommended by the words "should," "may," "desirable" (should, may, desirable).
The first and most important criterion is the level of availability. According to TIA 942, a data center of the highest - fourth - level must have 99.995% availability (i.e. no more than 15 minutes of downtime per year). Further, downward, 99.982%, 99.749% and 99.671% for the first level, which corresponds to 28 hours of downtime per year. The criteria are pretty tough, but what is data center availability? Here, only the downtime of the entire data center is considered due to the fault of one of the life support systems, and the downtime of individual servers does not affect the operational readiness of the data center. And if so, then the most probable reason for the refusal is rightly considered interruptions in the power supply system.

Our server room is equipped with a powerful APC UPS with N + 1 redundancy and an additional battery cabinet, which is able to maintain the operability of not only servers, but also all computers in the enterprise for up to 7 hours (why do we need working servers if there is no one to connect to them). Over the three years of operation, there have never been any failures, so by this parameter we can claim the highest TIER 4.

Speaking of energy supply, the third and fourth classes of the data center require a second power input. We don't have it, so the maximum is second class. Another standard classifies the power consumption per square meter of area. A strange parameter, I never thought about it. I measured it: I have 6 kW per 20 square meters, that is, 300 W per square meter (only the first level). Although it is possible that I think incorrectly: the standard states that a good data center should have free space to scale. That is, it turns out that the larger the “scaling margin”, the lower the level of the data center, but it should be the other way around. Here we have the lowest score, but still we meet the standard.

For me, an important parameter is the node for connecting external telecommunication systems. We carry out online interaction with customers to receive orders and ship components, respectively, the lack of communication can lead to a stop of the conveyor of our customers. And this will not only negatively affect our reputation, but also lead to serious fines. Interestingly, the standard itself says about duplication of communication entry points, but the appendix does not say anything about this (although it is indicated that in the levels above the first all subsystems must be redundant). We use two connection channels with automatic routing in case of failure in one of them, plus a backup GPRS router with manual connection. Here we again meet the highest requirements.

A significant part of the standard is devoted to cable networks and systems. These are distribution points for the main and vertical subsystems of the data center common cabling system and cabling infrastructure. After reading several parts of this section, I realized that I must either memorize it, or put up with it and concentrate on more important things. Although at a superficial glance (category 6 twisted pair, separation of active equipment from passive), we still comply with the standard. Although I am not sure about parameters such as the distance between the cabinets, the bending angles of the trays and the correct spacing of routes for low current cables, optics and power cables. We will assume that we partially meet the requirements here.

Air conditioning systems: there are air conditioners, there is redundancy, we can say that there is even a cold and hot corridor (albeit one, due to the size of the room.) But the cooling is distributed not under the raised floor, as recommended, but directly in the working area. Well, we do not control the humidity, but according to the standard, this is an omission. We put a partial match.

A separate part is devoted to false floors. The standard regulates both the height and the load on them. Moreover, the higher the class of the data center, the higher and more powerful the false floors should be. We have them, and in terms of height and loads they correspond to the second class of data centers. But my opinion is that the presence of false floors should not be a criterion, much less a characteristic of a data center. I was in the WestCall datacenter, where they initially abandoned false floors, placing all the trays under the ceiling. Air conditioning is done with hot and cold aisles. The building is detached, the premises are large, they provide specific services. That is, a good, "real" data center, but it turns out that without false floors, it does not formally meet the standard.
The next important point is the security system. Large data centers are guarded almost like safe boxes in a bank, and getting there is a whole procedure, from coordination at different levels to changing clothes and shoe covers. With us, this is simpler, but everything is present: physical security is provided by the private security company, which also guards the plant itself, and the access control system ensures that only authorized employees enter the premises. We put a plus sign.

And, finally, there is a gas fire extinguishing system. The main and reserve cylinders, sensors in the room itself, under the floor and above the ceiling and the control system - everything is there. By the way, an interesting point. When companies want to show off their data center, the first thing they show is a fire extinguishing system. Probably because this is the most unusual element of a data center, which is not found almost anywhere except data centers, and the rest of the equipment just looks like cabinets of different colors and sizes.

The main thing, in my opinion, the difference between the two upper levels of the data center from the lower ones is that they should be located in a separate building. It would seem that this is the sacred meaning of the difference between a server room and a data center: if it is allocated into a separate building, then this is a data center. But no, the standard says that the first two levels are also data centers.

I found the same parameter by which my server room on the data center does not pull: the size of the front door. According to the standard, there should be a minimum of 1.0 × 2.13 m, and preferably 1.2 × 2.13 m.And we have an ordinary door: 0.9 × 2.0 m.This is a minus, but consider it a criterion for distinguishing a data center from a server room the size of the front door is not serious.

Almost a real data center!

So what did we do? A small server room at the factory meets almost all the requirements of the data center organization standard, albeit with minor reservations. The only major discrepancy is the size of the front door. The absence of a separate building for the server room does not leave any chances for higher places. This means that the assumption that the data center is necessarily large, and the server room, on the contrary, is always small, is incorrect. As well as the second assumption that the data center serves many client companies. It follows from everything that the server room is just a synonym for a data center.

The concept of a data center appeared when they started selling hosting services, renting racks and placing servers. At that time, the concept of a server room was devalued by neglect of infrastructure due to the unpretentiousness of the PC and the low cost of downtime. And, in order to show that the provider has everything built for convenient and trouble-free operation, and they are able to guarantee the quality of the service, they introduced the concept of a data center, and then the standards for their construction. Given the trends of centralization, globalization and virtualization, I think that the concept of a server room will soon disappear or turn into a designation for a telecommunications hub.

I think our President is counting on about the same with the law on the police. The notion of "militia" has been devalued, and it is too late to create new rules for them. Whether it will be possible to build competent standards for the new structure - we'll see in the near future.

Data processing center- a building or a part of it, the primary function of which is the placement of information processing and storage equipment, as well as auxiliary (engineering) facilities that ensure its operation (definition given in the American standard EIA / TIA-942).

In the data center, powerful servers are concentrated on a relatively small area, which store and process information; network equipment responsible for the exchange of data with the outside world; engineering systems that ensure the life of this "cyber brain", and security systems that protect the data center from unwanted intrusions.

Rice. Data Center Circuit Diagram

Life support systems: ventilation, air conditioning, fire extinguishing, access control and video surveillance systems, structured cabling system.

Servers and network equipment: resource servers, application servers, information presentation servers.

Information security system: antivirus protection, spam filter, intrusion protection.

What companies need a data center

For a growing business, sooner or later, it becomes characteristic:

significant growth in information volumes
growth in the number of used business applications
data processing in subdivisions remote from each other.

The time has come to consolidate data processing and centrally manage IT infrastructure and information systems - for this it is necessary to build a data processing center (DPC).

Data centers are necessary for all companies for which the maximum degree of availability, fault tolerance, and reliability of information systems are critical. These are large companies that operate complex business applications (ERP-, CRM-systems and others), communication service operators, banks that serve client accounts and carry out payments with plastic cards, insurance companies and others.

Rice. What companies need a data center

Now in Russia the number of projects for creating data centers is growing, data centers are becoming more complex and increasing in size. The benefits of using data centers are beginning to be recognized by medium-sized businesses. Large companies that have acquired them for a long time are increasingly resorting to creating reserve capacities. In general, the system integration market is now evolving towards the creation of data center networks.

DATA CENTER NEEDS BY INDUSTRY

The traditional consumers of IT services have been and remain enterprises where information technologies are critical for business, and the very execution of business functions directly depends on the level, quality and degree of availability of IT services. These traditional consumers included government agencies, banks and telecommunications companies. Today these are mature, in terms of the level of IT development, users with an established culture, approaches and understanding of the place information technologies in the hierarchy of a company or organization. From a technical point of view, these are formed data centers equipped with modern equipment and software. They are characterized by a different range of problems: where to get electricity, how, in conditions of a widespread shortage of qualified IT personnel, to build an effective maintenance service capable of servicing the largest possible fleet of equipment with a minimum number of employees, how to retain specialists, etc. For such companies and organizations, it is important and other questions directly related to their business: for example, how to ensure the integrity of the IT structure when buying one enterprise to another? Or how to split the entire IT infrastructure while dividing the organization?

Today in Russia there is a new round of development of information technologies, when the most "greedy" for them are industrial enterprises, retail trade networks, insurance companies. This is where the greatest interest in IT is observed, in particular in data centers. Companies are in the stage of permanent search: where is the best place to locate their data center, what software tools can most fully solve the problems, what is the optimal hardware platform for running the necessary applications.

Thus, the players of an increasing number of market segments are aware of the criticality of information technologies for business, IT penetrates deeper into the economy of enterprises, and their role as a tool for doing business is increasing. In other words, the market is booming today, and system integrators have plenty of work to do.

A source: IT Manager

Benefits of Data Center Implementation

Unlike a decentralized approach to organizing a company's IT infrastructure, the presence of a data center saves finances and increases:

reliability of all information system(data storage reliability, hardware and software fault tolerance)
the level of services provided by the company to its customers
employee productivity by increasing the speed of operations, improving control, etc.

In addition, the data center provides the following capabilities:

modernize and expand computing systems in the context of the introduction of new business applications
centrally manage IT infrastructure and information systems
reduce the cost of ownership of information systems.

Corporate and hosting data centers

A corporate data center is initially created to solve the problems of automating the business processes of the customer and the owner of the data center.

A hosted data center is leased: the owner of the data center allocates racks or clusters to organizations, which are filled with the equipment of the tenant.

A mixed data center is partly focused on supporting the owner's business processes, and partly on solving the problems of tenants.

Primary and backup data centers

The main data center is the core of the information and telecommunication system. It takes over all the load in the normal mode.

The backup data center provides the usual mode of providing services in the event of failure, maintenance or hot replacement of equipment installed in the main data center.

The place of the data center in the IT infrastructure of the company

The Data Processing Center is a strategically important node of an organization's information system.

The data center provides:

consolidated data processing and storage
maintaining the specified mode of automation of business tasks of the enterprise
the safety of corporate information, as a rule, of high commercial value.

The success and competitiveness of the Customer directly depends on the stability, reliability, timeliness, efficiency and completeness of its services.

According to Meta Group, the financial costs in the event of system and equipment failure are:

$ 6.5 million per hour in case of failure of systems providing brokerage operations
$ 2.6 million per hour in case of failure of authorization systems credit cards
$ 14,500 per hour in case of ATM failure
$ 330,000 average cost per hour of data center downtime.