Enterprise Data Center Design and Methodology

Data Center Evolution

In the past, there were mainframes. There was usually only one of them for a company or a data center. The mainframe had a set of criteria: How much power it needed, how much heat it would give off per hour, how large it was, and how much it weighed. These criteria were non-negotiable. If you satisfied these criteria, the machine would run. If you didn't, it wouldn't run. You had one machine and you had to build a physical environment it could live in.

Fast forward to the 21st century. Computers have become a lot faster and a lot smaller. The data center that used to house just one machine now holds tens, hundreds, perhaps thousands of machines. But there is something that hasn't changed. Each of these machines still has ...