Data centre 101



Behind closed doors Secrecy seems to shroud the data centre arena -- all well and good for security's sake, but not so great when trying to pick a provider. RMIT IT Test Labs' Kire Terzievski pulls back the curtains to find what data centre options exist.


Contents
Security
 Building management
 Cabling
 Managed services
 Second data centre
 Data centre checklist
 Sidebar: HP develops smart rack
 About RMIT
Most companies, for some time now, have recognised the benefits of using data centres to increase reliability, redundancies, and processing speeds.

SAN (storage area networks), NAS (network attached storage) devices, and server farms -- the data centre -- places all of this in one controlled local environment.

There are two types of data centres -- the corporate data centre and Internet data centre. The corporate data centre is maintained from within the corporation while the Internet data centre is operated typically by an Internet service provider (ISP).

We are going to look at what makes up a data centre and what to look out for when choosing one to host your equipment. Finding a terrible lot of information about data centre make-up can be hard as most data centres, won't make certain information public because of concerns over security.

Designing data centres is definitely a specialty area. The equipment that is housed inside is complex and there are specific requirements for heating and cooling as well as safety that must be met.

For this reason, data centres typically abide by standards when it comes to power and general safety but the rest is left to best practice.

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Talkback 2 comments

  1. Security - Mantraps Ernie Z. Gatus -- 23/09/05

    Can anyone tell me where I can find a weight measuring device/equipment to be installed in conjunction with mantraps?

  2. Security - Mantraps Ernie Z. Gatus -- 23/09/05

    Can anyone tell me where I can find a weight measuring device/equipment to be installed in conjunction with mantraps?

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