Data Centres and the Cloud
What Is a Data Centre?
What data centres are, what happens inside them, and why every app, payment and video depends on these large, power-hungry buildings.
Every time you stream a video, pay by UPI or ask an AI chatbot a question, a data centre somewhere does the work.
What’s inside
- Thousands of servers: computers that store and process data.
- Networking equipment connecting them to the internet.
- Cooling systems to stop machines overheating.
- Backup power: batteries and diesel generators.
Reliability
Data centres are designed to run 24 hours a day with almost no downtime. Top facilities promise uptime above 99.99 percent.
Types
- Enterprise: owned by one company for its own use.
- Colocation: companies rent space, power and cooling for their servers.
- Hyperscale: huge facilities run by cloud giants like Amazon, Microsoft and Google.
Measuring size
Data centres are measured by power capacity in megawatts (MW), since electricity is the key input.
Why it matters
Data centres are infrastructure, like roads or power plants, for the digital economy.
When you scan a QR code to pay, your request travels to servers in a data centre that check your balance and complete the transfer within seconds.
The cloud runs on physical buildings full of servers and power equipment.
- Data centres house servers, networks, cooling and backup power.
- They run 24 hours a day with very high reliability.
- Types include enterprise, colocation and hyperscale.
- Capacity is measured in megawatts of power.
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