What is a Data Center?

What is a Data Center?

A place that houses a lot of computers (servers) and often looks like a warehouse.

Tens of thousands of servers!! That’s over 40 servers in one rack which is equal to over two households of Power! 

These servers are very powerful…to save space they are made thinner and are stacked in racks. Because they are so powerful they use a lot of power and cooling to make sure they don’t overheat. Think your one computer has a bunch of cables going to it? Just imagine how many cables go to a rack of 40 servers! Fiver and copper cabling connect all of it together.

Probably everyday! Any time you use the internet you are accessing a data center somewhere…and that is sometimes known as ‘”cloud computing”. Data centers need to be up 24/7 to make sure you always have access to the company’s site. Generators, safe locations, security and dual cooling units help protect from having an outage.

Because sharing pictures on social media is fun and checking your email keeps you connected!

big data concept

Why has Data Center Demand Exploded?

And why are they coming to the edge?

Explosion of Data…Big Data

The Global Big Data Analytics Market was valued at US$ 37.34 billion in 2018 and expected to reach US$ 105.08 billion by 2027 at a CAGR of 12.3% throughout the forecast period from 2019 to 2027.

The rapidly increasing volume and complexity of data are due to growing mobile data traffic, cloud-computing traffic and burgeoning development and adoption of technologies including IoT and AI, which is driving the growth of big data analytics market. Over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data generated every day. Data is created by every click, swipe, share, search, and stream, proliferating the demand for big data analytics market globally.

Companies Extend Cloud to the Edge

 

Firms worldwide on page to spend $240.6 billion on edge computing through 2024.

The Wall Street Journal, 2021

Investors are increasingly looking to fund data center growth in smaller cities like Chattanooga and Greenville as well as the huge cloud clusters in Northern Virginia and other major markets. The growing confidence in second-tier markets reflects investor interest in the growth of edge computing and the pandemic-driven reality that data is important everywhere.

DataCenter Frontier, 2021

Who Wants Data Center Space in Alabama?

  • Content Companies

    Think Netflix or Facebook. In order to improve customer web experience, content providers want to be closer to the subscribers of their services. They start with large markets and are making their way to 'the edge'.

  • Hospitals (and all healthcare providers)

    Federal law regulates the protection of patient data. Data centers provide the safety and compliance required to meet those federal requirement. Data rooms take up billable hospital bed-space, putting servers in data centers makes sense.

  • Institutions (schools, universities, municipalities)

    "The new normal". Distance learning, remote workers, zoom meetings: all of these things need a lot of internet and certainly they need to be available 100% of the time.

  • Businesses that lose money when their systems are down

    According to Gartner (the leading technology analyst firm), the average cost of IT downtime is $5,600 per minute. Because there are so many differences in how businesses operate, downtime, at the low end, can be as much as $140,000 per hour, $300,000 per hour on average and as much as $540,000 per hour at the higher end

  • The rest of the United States

    Local data centers make it easier, safer and quicker for national business to reach our businesses in the South.

Disaster Recovery

Disaster Recovery (DR) site is a facility an organization can use to recover and restore its technology infrastructure and operations when its primary data center becomes unsvailable.

Southern Edge Connect Data Center is a purpose-built, hardened data center. With industry best roof and wall ratings, SECDC is the perfect location for 2nd sites for Gulf Coast companies.

Located in the Eastern Alabama corridor, SECDC is the perfect Gateway between Gulf Coast cities, Atlanta, Huntsville/Birmingham and all points north.

SECDC DR Features:

  • Pre-cabled cabinets
  • Zero down-time SLA
  • Pre-positioned cross-connects
  • “Instant On” DR cabinet packages
  • Discounted rates for 2nd sites
servers at SEDC

Business Continuity

Business Continuity (BC)  is a business’s level of readiness to maintain critical functions after an emergency or disruption. These events can include: Security breaches. Natural disasters. Power outages.
 

  • Space

    • Move-in ready
    • Hot, warm, cold site configurations
    • 20 dedicated stations, scalable to 200
    • Dedicated and shared environment

  • Amenities

    • Conference rooms
    • Private furnished offices
    • Fitness center/showers
    • On-site cafeteria
    • Hotels on campus

  • Communicate

    • Scalable bandwidth up tp 10GPS
    • Direct connect to data center available
    • WiFi and VoIP handsets
    • PCs/workstations available

  • Security

    • Separate infrastructure from data center
    • Three layers of security
    • Dedicated physical and logical security available

High Angle Shot of Group of Professionals