6 Key Knowledge to Build the Power of Computing for Your Business

Data Center-Related Definitions

A server is an enterprise-grade computer designed to provide special functions and services to users over the internet. Housing these systems in a centralized facility simplifies management and infrastructure efficiency, as well as makes it easier to implement better reliability and security features. Thus, enterprises are striving to build powerful data centers or server rooms to fulfill their business goal efficiently.

Data Center
A data center is a facility that an organization uses for housing its IT equipment, including servers, storage, networking devices (such as switches, routers and firewalls), as well as the racks and cabling needed to organize and connect this equipment; and it requires infrastructure to support it such as power distribution systems (including backup generators and uninterruptible power supplies) and ventilation and cooling systems (such as air conditioning systems or liquid cooling systems).

Server Room
A server room is where enterprise servers are kept. It is usually outfitted with peripheral subsystems for cooling, ventilation, fire suppression, etc., to ensure stability and safety. A server room may be part of a larger data center, or it may be another name for the private data centers built by organizations to support operations. The collection of servers in a server room may fit the definition of a server farm; or the servers may be interconnected to form a computing cluster.

Rack Unit
A rack unit is often abbreviated as "RU" or just "U"; it is the standardized unit of measurement used in server racks, as defined by the Electronic Industries Alliance (EIA). "1U" equals the space occupied by three holes on the server rack's mounting flange, which is 44.45 millimeters (or 1.75 inches) of vertical space. A standard 19-inch rack usually measures 42U in height, or about 190 centimeters tall. Since most rack-mounted servers come in the sizes of 1U, 2U, or 4U, the key is to mix and match form factors that will fully populate the rack, while leaving enough room for peripherals such as cooling systems, if required.

Find the functions of computing that fits your business needs

As servers do more and more for us, server types have become more diversified. To list just a few examples, servers used for scientific research may be loaded with computing clusters to enable high performance computing (HPC); teleco in the 5G era can use edge computing servers to reduce network bandwidth usage and latency; and, more and more enterprises utilize cloud computing for artificial intelligence (AI) development and management. However, one size does not fit all when it comes to servers. Since they are meant to serve specific roles within the IT infrastructure, it is imperative to find the ideal server for each role to fully deliver the maximum computing efficiency.

Computing Cluster
A computing cluster is a set of computers working together like a single system, providing better performance, availability, and cost efficiency than a comparable mainframe computer. Establishing a computing cluster can be a major step toward achieving high performance computing (HPC), high availability (HA), or load balancing capabilities. The advantages are many, including faster processing speeds; larger storage capacities; better data security, scalability, and cost efficiency.

Edge Computing
Edge computing is a type of computing network architecture, where computation is moved as close to the source of data as possible, to reduce latency and bandwidth use. The aim is to reduce the amount of computing required to be performed in a centralized, remote location far away from the source of the data or the user who requires the result of the computation, thus minimizing the amount of long-distance communication that must happen between a client and server. Edge computing will be a key technology component of 5G network infrastructure, since the amount of data generated by 5G devices will be too great for a traditional cloud computing network architecture to handle without unacceptable delays.

Cloud Computing
In simple terms, Cloud Computing is the delivery of computing services to a user or an organization—servers, storage, databases, networking, software, analytics, artificial intelligence and more—over the Internet ("the Cloud"). Cloud Computing is usually provided using virtualization, in which the physical computer hardware is abstracted from the software & applications that are running on that hardware. Cloud Computing services can be provided in several different ways, via public, private or hybrid clouds.