Data Centre Essentials

4IT Operations and the Evolution of the Data Centre

Why does a data centre exist? First and foremost, it exists because it’s a necessary part of the infrastructure that powers the digital economy and the Information Technology (IT) of many small, medium, and large enterprises. It is part of an ecosystem of high‐speed connectivity, the highways connecting data centres with the internet. Some could be compared to logistics hubs (focused on routing and exchange), others to harbors (focus on the landing of sea cables, pre‐processing, and re‐routing), others are the local post office (focus on last‐mile delivery), and yet others could be considered processing or storage facilities. All have in common that they are connected to the same highways (high‐speed fibre) to transport their goods – digital resources.

The data centre facility exists as a necessary part, a component, of IT infrastructure. It is in itself, the facility is neither a product nor a complete infrastructure proposition. Without IT equipment, a data centre facility would be like a railway without trains. Despite different business and ownership models ranging from colocation, cloud, and hosting to enterprise and government‐owned facilities, the facilities themselves do not change very much. Like a railway, one can run many kinds of trains and models of how to pay for the train on the same track, without the railway changing.

Building on Figure 4.1, let us quickly define the critical pieces without which digital ...