Demystifying the Cloud

DEMYSTIFYING THE CLOUD HOW DATA CENTERS KEEP INFORMATION BOUND TO EARTH The expression, “The Cloud," has become commonplace in modern society. People use it all the time to discuss various apps, websites, servers, and countless other things that are Internet-related. But what does that ambiguous expression even mean? THE CLOUD: A SIMPLE EXPLANATION A massive, physical collection of interconnected information technology servers that are easily accessible by a user through a network. Advances in technology have allowed for servers to essentially be outsourced, and this has had a large impact on business the world over: 80% 84% 21% is the amount of annual savings for users who move applications to the cloud of CIOs have some form of of CIOs who have moved infrastructure delivered to the cloud have cut through a cloud network application costs BECAUSE OF THE GROWTH BENEFITS OF CLOUD COMPUTING: 60% 33% #1 of CIOs have stated their #1 priority is cloud computing. of IT budgets are estimated to be spent on cloud computing in 2103 WHERE THE CLOUD RESIDES Many people think the Cloud is a magical network of servers inexplicably up in space. However this simply isn't true. The Cloud is actually in data centers, in many physical locations across Earth. Thousands of data centers exist around the world, primarily in the United States and Europe, with growth and development in Asia and Australia. INTERNET USAGE WORLDWIDE: JUNE 2012 * Usage Growth: DECEMBER 2000 556.4% 0.5 billion 1.0 1.5 2.0 2.5 billion billion billion billion Because of this rapid surge in usage, safe and secure servers have been more necessary than ever before. WHERE TO CONSTRUCT DATA CENTERS IS DETERMINED BY: 1. AN APPROXIMATE PHYSICAL SPACE Physical Geography: Large Flat surface area, possibly underground. Natural Energy Saving Feature: Water, geothermal, & wind energy Climate: Safety: Away from crime, targets for Limited risk of natural disaster. terrorism, etc. 4. LACK OF INTENSE LAWS, POLICIES,& REGULATIONS 2. AVAILABILITY OF 3. AFFORDABLE HIGH CAPACITY ENERGY RESOURCES INTERNET CURRENTLY: 50,000,000 There are physical servers in the world Microsoft runs a data center that is the size of Google 10 football fields 260,000,000 Watts Equivalent to 0.01% of global energy used to power 200,000 homes runs 900,000 servers in 13 data centers worldwide THE INNER WORKINGS OF THE CLOUD In data centers, servers are running 24/7. Companies go to great lengths to keep these functioning smoothly. Fiber optic networks connect data centers together. These run at speeds 200,000 times faster than a typical home Internet connection. Wires are typically color-coordinated in order to avoid confusion and increase worker efficiency. THESE MASSIVE COMPUTERS NEED TO REMAIN COOL IN TEMPERATURE: Thick plastic barriers keep Hundreds of fans Complicated water-cooling systems are also used. Intricate air pump hot air out of conditioning systems pump cold air constantly the server racks and cold air in, and into a cooling unit before recirculation hot air out MASSIVE AMOUNTS OF ENERGY Globally, more energy is dedicated to data centers each year: 50 gigawatts 40 gigawatts 30 gigawatts 20 gigawatts 10 gigawatts 2007 2011 2012 2013 *1 gigawatt = 1 billion watts SAFETY PRECAUTIONS: For fire prevention, certain policies must be maintained: Protect the information at all costs: Biometric security and 24/7 manned security Temperature is Reasonable Massive 2 Megawatt maintained around distance between generators to run the data centers in case 72 degrees and humidity at 45%. servers to decrease monitors to check risk of fire. of power outage. premises for safety. It is important to know that the Internet is not up in the air; it is living in well-maintained data centers that are firmly grounded on Earth. Sources: http://www.statetechmagazine.com/article/2013/09/13-cloud-computing-stats-cios http://www.techradar.com/us/news/internet/cloud-computing-explained-11056B8 http://storageservers.wordpress.com/2013/07/17/facts-and-stats-of-worlds-largest-data-centers/ http://pear.accc.uic.edu/ojs/index.php/fm/article/view/2456/2171# p2 http://www.networkworld.com/careers/2002/0415man.html http://www.google.com/about/datacenters/ http://www.internetworldstats.com/stats.htm http://www.computerweekly.com/news/2240164589/Datacentre-power-demand-grew-63-in-2012-Global-datacentre-cencus Brought to you by telx the Interconnection E data center company www.telx.com %24