Data Centre

The name given to a building dedicated to housing data processing computers.

For example a large Internet Service Provider has a 'data centre' containing thousands of web servers. These servers are rented to clients who want to run a web site.

Another example is a finance company that keeps most of its mainframes in one building. This is the 'data centre'.

Data Centres are linked to the outside world through a number of high speed network links. They are usually air-conditioned to keep the computers cool and also highly secure to protect the data.

Data centres may also be 'mirrored' i.e. a duplicate data centre exist somewhere else so if one burns down, then other one can take over.

See disaster planning in the glossary

2020-10