What are the 3 Main Components of a Data Center Infrastructure?

data center infrastructure management

Introduction

The data center is the hub of your business. It’s where you store and manage all of your company’s most valuable assets, including customer information. The more you know about the data center environment, the better you can plan for future growth and minimize downtime in case of emergencies. It’s also important to understand that while each component may be critical to maintaining a healthy data center, they aren’t independent; they work together as one whole system: 

Cooling

Cooling is the process of removing heat from a space. Cooling is important in data center infrastructure management because they generate a lot of heat, which can cause equipment failure and other problems. Cooling should be designed to remove this waste heat efficiently and continuously so that it doesn’t build up and damage your equipment.

Cooling systems may include air conditioning or water cooling, but these are just two examples; there are many different types of coolers available today (and more being invented every day!). The most common type used in data centers today is chillers–these devices use refrigeration technology to remove waste heat from rooms below them within buildings like yours!

Power

  • Power 
  • Cooling and climate control 
  • HVAC systems, fire suppression systems, and other building equipment that require electricity to operate. 

I/O 

I/O, or input/output, is the ability to connect to your data center. This could be a cable that connects you directly to the server room and allows you to power it on or off, or it could be an Ethernet cable that brings electricity into the room. 

The I/O components of a data center include: 

  • Power Distribution Units (PDUs)
  • Ethernet Cables and Connectors

You need to know about these basics to manage your data center. 

  • Cooling is a big deal. You want to make sure that your servers are cooled properly, so they don’t overheat and die. It’s important because if you don’t keep them at an appropriate temperature, the hardware will slowly degrade over time and could eventually fail catastrophically–which means losing potentially years’ worth of valuable data in one fell swoop! 
  • Power is equally as important as cooling; if something goes wrong with your power supply or cable, it can cause serious problems for all connected systems running on it (including yours). That said, electricity is still cheap enough today that even small mistakes won’t cost much money–but if you’re not careful about where you buy from then this could end up being an issue later down the line when things start failing out from under us all at once due to age/usefulness cycle after several years spent under constant stress caused by inadequate maintenance practices such as not checking out those UPS chargers regularly enough before plugging them back into my laptop when going home late night… 

Conclusion

A data center is like a big engine that needs to be maintained and operated correctly to keep it running at peak performance. If you want your data center to perform well, then you need to know what makes up the basic components of this infrastructure. We covered some of these basics here: cooling, power and I/O devices (like network cards).