Inside the Cloud: What Really Happens in a Data Center
You send and receive emails, often with multiple accounts. You may make use of “cloud storage” for your phone photos and backups. Where do these things live? Where, exactly, is “the cloud?” The answers to these and many other questions lie in data centers. Before we go any deeper, though, we need to understand what a data center actually is: A data center is a specialized building full of powerful computers and network equipment that store, process, and deliver the digital data and online services people and businesses use every day.
When you see the word “datacenter,” it’s not a different thing than a “data center” phrased in two words. Google and Meta almost always use the phrase instead of the word in their style guides, and Microsoft leans toward using it as one word, but it’s the same thing. When you see it written in an article or blog post, using the word “datacenter” isn’t something different than a cluster of computers for processing data.
The Physical Data Center
A data center is usually a low, windowless building filled with racks of servers, cooling apparatus, and power distribution systems. They’re windowless because sunlight generates heat, which can put additional load on cooling systems. Also, windows can break in extreme weather conditions, creating water damage risks for the equipment.
You will rarely see a data center taller than two stories, because the equipment inside is extremely heavy. A single rack loaded with servers, storage, networking gear, and power equipment can weigh around a ton, and some high-density systems are even heavier. However, a single rack is never enough.
Redundancy
Technology demands redundancy for both planned and unplanned events. Periodically, every device will require a reboot. However, a server or a group of servers that are constantly processing data would lose production time for a reboot. To avoid any downtime, servers share processing loads with other servers, but those other servers live in a different rack. This also prevents downtime due to a power or network failure in a single rack of equipment. But wait, there’s more!
Colocation
When planning for large data processing activities, the engineers also consider what happens if an entire region’s data centers become unavailable. Natural disasters and power grid failures are the two big risks to localized data processing. Data needs to exist in another location off-site from its origin. That is, if you have one server in Miami, FL, processing data, and a twin in a different rack in the same data center, another Hurricane Andrew could put that operation out of business, at least for a time. The organization that owns the operation would want to replicate the processes and data to a different location far from Miami, and it would want to select a location that isn’t also subject to the same type of hazards. Mobile, AL, would not be a good option, but Phoenix, AZ, might.
What’s Inside a Data Center
Storage
I mentioned racks of servers for data processing and storage. Storage for what? Well, files like Microsoft Office documents, but also database files with financial and sales transactions, personnel records, and inventory. Additionally, if you use some sort of cloud storage account for your photos, they’re stored on a server in a data center. If you back up your computer or phone to the cloud, that backup is stored on a server in a data center.
Computing Power
Data centers also house and host the computing power behind running applications and programs, websites, and AI models. When you shop at a retailer’s website, that’s not just one set of pages. You have filters that let you narrow your views to your size, style, color, and even brand. Adding to a cart is another process that the website offers. Checking out and making a secure payment is a different process still. These are all microprocesses that are integrated into the total site, but each of them demands a certain amount of computing power and resources – disk space, RAM, and network capacity. It’s fine for just you shopping to have it all sitting on one server, but it’s never just you shopping, is it? It’s millions of shoppers daily for any given website.
Network Gear
In addition to the computers and storage, a data center will contain the network gear that moves data between servers inside the data center, but also the gear that sends all that data out to the Internet. The details of networking in a data center are far beyond this piece, because I’d have to explain how a single server rack can contain servers whose IP addresses are vastly different. It’s enough to know for this purpose that it can happen. But the networking equipment needs to be able to route the data from Company A’s server on Rack 1 in Schenectady, NY, to Company A’s server on Rack 26 in Schenectady, NY, and to the Internet to Company A’s server on Rack 54 in Seattle, WA.
Risks, Costs, and Trade-offs
The elephant in the room is power consumption. If you’ve ever sat with a laptop on your bare legs for 15 minutes, you understand that computers generate heat. Besides the power just to run the equipment, the data center can’t just let that heat build up. Heat, even though it’s native to computing, is also the enemy of computing equipment. Much of the power cost is attributable to the cooling needs. This does create quite a large environmental footprint, and that’s not going away. Our computing needs are not going to decrease. Ever. That’s our new reality.
Security is an issue at a data center, both physical and digital. A data center requires strict access control, so restricted entry points and surveillance are requirements. Digital security happens at the entry point to the data center at the Internet gateway, and at every point of access. The Networking gear is configured for security, as is the entry to the server, as well as the operating systems, programs, and data.
Ownership of the data center can be a factor in decision-making. Cloud providers and large companies come to mind first, such as Amazon, Google, and Microsoft. Other players do offer data center facilities, which often include colocation facilities. An organization that requires a specific type of colocation ownership for regulatory functions would examine the providers’ security and ethical postures.
Why Regular People Benefit From Understanding Data Centers
Now that you know a bit more about how data centers handle the bits of information flowing around the world, you are better equipped to understand and interpret news about outages, “the cloud,” and AI. You can also ask better questions and get better answers when you are considering service providers. Now you know to ask where your data will be stored, and whether and where it is backed up.
You also have a way to evaluate the benefits and costs, financial, environmental, ethical, and technological, of a data center coming to your area. Much of what you get in sound bites and headlines will give you just enough to scare you unnecessarily. A data center may house some government infrastructure, but a data center isn’t necessarily a government facility. It may be, but it may not be. It isn’t all about AI, and it isn’t all about being spied on. Government isn’t the only entity holding data, and holding data isn’t the only thing going on in a data center. The transaction for your next book, or your next movie, or even the research for your next doctor will all travel through a data center. Count on it.
Your Turn
Was this helpful in your understanding of data centers? If I’ve left out something, or if this piece triggered another question, let me know below in the comments.
Curious for more?
Check out these links:
What a data center is and how it works explained
What Happens When Data Centers Come to Town?
My photography shops are https://www.oakwoodfineartphotography.com/ and https://oakwoodfineart.etsy.com, my merch shop is https://www.zazzle.com/store/south_fried_shop.
Check out my New and Featured page – the latest photos and merch I’ve added to my shops! https://oakwoodexperience.com/new-and-featured/
Curious about safeguarding your digital life without getting lost in the technical weeds? Check out ‘Your Data, Your Devices, and You’—a straightforward guide to understanding and protecting your online presence. Perfect for those who love tech but not the jargon. Available now on Amazon:
https://www.amazon.com/Your-Data-Devices-Easy-Follow-ebook/dp/B0D5287NR3
