In general terms, resiliency refers to the ability of the Data Center and its hardware to recover quickly & resume its operations even in the case of equipment failures, power outages, or any other form of disruption. The resiliency of the Data Center includes a planned portion of the Data Center facility and is usually linked with disaster planning & Data Center disaster recovery considerations.
What is Data Center Resiliency?
The terms Data Center redundancy & Data Center resiliency is very similar, and both deal with the same topic. However, Data Center redundancy is about the capacity of a particular element, whereas, Data Center includes the entire Data Center to resume operations. Various factors contribute to Data Center resiliency, like having experts available 24×7 on-site, which strive towards avoiding any form of equipment failures.
Challenges of Data Center Operations
The following are some common challenges that Data Center providers can face-
- Operations: Maintenance and monitoring of a Data Center facility are important to ensure the hardware and software present within Data Center remains running to avoid any form of disruptions, resulting in improved Data Center resilience. Defined maintenance schedules can become an effective tool for preventing any downtime issues
- Compliance: Complying and adhering can be a bit challenging for Data Centers. Non-compliances can become an expensive affair not only in terms of fines and penalties but also litigation over outages and data breaches
- Skilled Staffing: Data Centers demand an experienced and highly skilled workforce to operate and maintain them round-the-clock. However, increased data operations are often resulting in a lesser number of available qualified experts
How is Data Center Resiliency Achieved?
Data Centers’ resiliency can be achieved using redundant hardware, systems, or even Data Center facilities. In case a component of the Data Center goes down or fails any form of disruption, the redundant element can take over, allowing continuous support of computing services to the users. Usually, the end-users of a resilient system are not aware in case of a disruption taking place. There are various techniques in place that ensure resiliency. Server clustering is one such technique that supports redundant workloads over multiple physical servers. In case a server present in the cluster fails, then another node in the cluster resumes with its redundant components & workloads.
Data Center resiliency varies owing to the importance of workloads. Organizations with mission-critical workloads will have several resiliency techniques at more levels within a Data Center facility. On the other hand, non-essential workloads have relatively lower levels of resiliency as they can tolerate some disruption levels or even remain offline till the time their restoration is complete.
Concluding Words
Having a suitable Data Center technology partner helps ensure smoother operations of the Data Center. A full-fledged Data Center operations and management team allows enterprise’ IT Heads & CIOs to focus on their core business competencies, acknowledging the fact the business-critical data remains secure at all times.
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