What is a Data Center? What are some of the best data centers?

With today's changing times, the way we communicate, extract, and relay information has changed too. Since the advent of high-speed internet, the demand for real-time data transmission has increased. As a result, we need to rely on data centers that can help us meet these requirements. A data center is a centralized physical repository that enterprises use to house their critical applications and data. They are composed of a number of technical elements such as routers, switches, security devices, storage systems, servers, application delivery controllers, and more. And to run data centers, enterprises need power subsystems, uninterruptable power supplies (UPS), ventilation and cooling systems, backup generators, and cabling to connect to external network operators. A data center can either be private or shared. The primary purpose of a data center is to help in Email and file sharing, productivity applications, Customer relationship management (CRM), Enterprise resource planning (ERP), and database management and support activities regarding Big data, artificial intelligence, and machine learning. The following are some of the best data centers in the World.

ACC7 DuPont Fabros Technology

Location: Virginia

This was built with a medium voltage electrical distribution system and an isolated parallel uninterruptible power supply topology. With six buildings, housing 28 computer rooms, and capacity for over 10.5 thousand servers, the ACC7 has 450 thousand sq ft of commercial area and produces 41.6 MW of power. It uses recycled water for cooling.

Tahoe Reno 1

Location: Switch's Citadel Campus, Nevada

It is built on future-proof concepts that are imitated with virtually all new data center designs. This facility is located near the Tesla Gigafactory. It will be powered exclusively by renewable energy, making it not only the biggest but also the greenest data center in the World.

Range International Information Group

Location: Langfang, China

It was designed to help meet the skyrocketing needs of the Chinese economic and technological boom that has been running for about two decades. As with most large scale projects in China, this data center was built by a combined public and private investment and is overseen by IBM. It consumes 150 megawatts of power.

Lakeside Technology Center

Location: Chicago, Illinois

Owned by Digital Reality Trust, this data center was initially built to house the printing presses for Yellow Book and Sears Catalogues. It has 53 backup power generators to minimize the risk of an outage and utilizes 8.5 million gallons of cooling fluid per year. It is used by companies like IBM, CenturyLink, Facebook, and TelX.

Kolos Data Centre

Location: Ballengen, Norway

This data center is designed to take advantage of the country's competitive green energy, cool climate, and large technical workforce, as well as access to international high-performance fiber.  The massive climate-cooled facility, powered by Norway's abundant hydropower, has the potential to scale beyond 1,000 megawatts of computing power by 2027, servicing the rapidly growing global data market. It claims to provide high-speed traffic to continental Europe and even the United States' East Coast through high-performance fiber in neighboring Sweden.

Tulip Data City

Location: Bangalore, India

For several years, the Tulip Data City was the largest non-US based data center in the World. Tulip Telecom Ltd. developed this facility with the help of IBM to assist with design consultancy for the overall data center space covering a range of data center technologies, including power, cooling, rack layout, chillers, UPS, DG sets, and others.

Bahnhof's Pionen

Location: Central Stockholm, Sweden

Pionen was a former civil defense center built in the White Mountains Södermalm borough of Stockholm, Sweden, in 1943 to protect essential government functions. After Swedish Internet service provider Bahnhof bought it,  it was completely redesigned in 2007-2008 to become the data center that it is today. Its backup power is handled by two submarine engines (Maybach MTU diesel engines), producing 1.5 MW of power. At the same time, its Baltimore Aircoil fans help in cooling by producing a cooling effect of 1.5 MW.

Next-Generation Data

Location: Newport, UK

This data center is home to some of the World's greatest companies, including BT, IBM, and global public cloud providers. It is also one of the most efficient data centers in the UK, with low PUEs. It has its own sub-station with a direct connection to the 400kV Super Grid, effectively by-passing the electricity distribution network. Initially built to host an LG semiconductor plant, BT and Logica are the two main costumers of NGD since 2010, occupying two 75 thousand sq ft halls each.

Swiss Fort Knox

Location: Baar, Switzerland

This data center is considered to be the World's safest place to store data. Built in 1994, by Christoph Oschwald, and his business partner Hanspeter Baumann, who converted the former headquarters of the Swiss Air Force into a top-notch data center by installing emergency diesel engines, a ventilation system, a filter, and an air-pressure system to prevent the entry of any poisonous gases. Water from an underground lake keeps the center's cooling system at 8 degrees Celsius. All the data is encrypted, and the digital key to decrypt them remains with clients.

Utah Data Center

Location: Bluffdale, Utah

Also known as the Intelligence Community Comprehensive National Cybersecurity Initiative Data Center, it was designed to support the US intelligence community. Its purpose is to intercept, decipher, analyze, and store vast swaths of the World's communications as they zap down from satellites and zip through the underground and undersea cables of international, foreign, and domestic networks.