The importance of external data centers is growing in our digital economy. Before, every company or government invested heavily in its own server rooms. Today, these same entities make strategic choices for a private, public or hybrid cloud in an external data center. Therefore, data centers play a vital role in the performance and availability of digital processes but also, without a doubt, in data security and privacy. Therefore, the choice of an external data center, with which you form a cooperative relationship, is all the more important. After all, what do you know about your external data center (or data centers)? Where are your critical data stored?
The provision of digital services is an inextricable part of our modern economy. While consumers more and more frequently turn to the Internet for their purchases, the government is also heavily investing in digital service provision. Companies no longer purchase software that runs locally on their own computers and servers but instead make use of web applications, even for their most critical and privacy-sensitive business processes. Moreover, web applications are increasingly linked to one another. When this occurs inexpertly, a data leak in one application can lead to unwanted access to all of the linked data.
Need for data centers
All of these digital processes are in need of a robust, critical infrastructure. This is the only way to comply with the requirements related to data security, speed and 24/7 availability. Therefore, the interconnectedness of external data centers with our (mobile) daily lives is also impossible to underrate.
Limiting the ecological footprint
Digital processes require energy. A lot of energy. Data centers bear much of the responsibility for keeping this energy consumption to a minimum. In comparison with on-premise server rooms, which usually devour enormous energy, modern data centers have already made significant progress in limiting their ecological footprints. Consider the systems for heat recovery and the continuous search for the optimization of the electrical and cooling efficiency of data centers.
Consolidation of large data centers
Today, we still see that too many servers are housed in small, old, local data centers. The consolidation to larger, reliable and professionally managed data centers is unavoidable. An evolution which we here at Antwerp DC and Brussel DC welcome enthusiastically.
