SDIA definition
Cisco defines data center as
At its simplest, a data center is a physical facility that organizations use to house their critical applications and data. A data center's design is based on a network of computing and storage resources that enable the delivery of shared applications and data. The key components of a data center design include routers, switches, firewalls, storage systems, servers, and application-delivery controllers.
Other definitions
Gartner defines Data Center as:
A data center is the department in an enterprise that houses and maintains back-end IT systems and data stores — its mainframes, servers and databases. In the days of large, centralized IT operations, this department and all the systems resided in one physical place, hence the name data center. With today’s more distributed computing methods, single data center sites are still common, but are becoming less so. The term continues to be used to refer to the department that has responsibility for these systems, no matter how dispersed they are.
The U.S. Environmental Protection Agency defines Data Center as:
Primarily electronic equipment used for data processing (servers) , data storage (storage equipment), and communications (network equipment). Collectively, this equipment processes, stores, and transmits digital information. Specialized power conversion and backup equipment to maintain reliable, high-quality power, as well as environmental control equipment to maintain the proper temperature and humidity for the ICT equipment. [EPA]
The European Commission defines a Data Center as:
‘Data centre’ means a structure, or group of structures, with the purpose of centralized accommodation, interconnection and operation of information technology and network telecommunications equipment providing data storage, processing and transport services together with all the facilities and infrastructures for power distribution and environmental control and the necessary levels of resilience and security required to provide the desired service availability.
Related SDIA publications
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