When it comes to data centers, redundancy and reliability are similar but not quite equal. When it comes to understanding why redundancy and reliability is important in data centers, consider this statistic. According to the National Archives and Records Administration in Washington D.C, over 90 percent of businesses that experienced over 10 days of loss of availability in their data center with filing for bankruptcy within a year.
Clearly these are important safeguards for your business. Understanding both aspects of data center performance requires a brief overview of both aspects.
In terms of data centers, redundancy is the operational requirement of having multiples of certain components within the center. This means that core functions and systems will have duplicates that run on a different server to ensure that, in the event of an unforeseen natural disaster or wide spread power outage, the data center is never rendered completely ineffective.
Redundancy ensures that if one system fails, there is at least one other system that performs the same tasks to back it up. Services which are often duplicated as part of the redundancy operational requirement include cabling, switches, fan, heating and cooling, and servers. The amount of redundancy required in a data center is based on the number of tolerable minutes of downtime a business can afford. The less downtime your business can withstand, the higher the level of redundancy required in your data center.
Reliability refers to the ability of a data center to perform its required operations under a specified set of conditions for a predetermined period of time and directly affects the availability of a system or application. The presence or absence of a reliable data network is considered to be the key determining factor in data center effectiveness. In terms of reliability, there are five main characteristics of a highly reliable system. These are high availability control, advanced data collection, advanced analytics, critical alarm response and effective integrations of all systems. Ideally, your data center should have each of the characteristics in place.
A data center is designed to provide ease of use, reduction of overall costs, increased effectiveness of server management and optimal security measures. Reliability and redundancy are just two of the security measures employed by data centers today. To learn more about data center security, visit our website or call a Volico customer service representative at 888.865.4261 for a complete explanation of security services and data centers.
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