Data centres are relatively new in our urban landscape. In fact, most people are not even aware that they exist. A data centre is often an anonymous-looking industrial building, used to house computer systems and associated components such as connectivity and storage systems. It has redundant or backup power, redundant data communications connections, cooling installations, fire safety systems and various security devices. Taking all of this into account, large data centres are enormous operations on an industrial scale.
The importance of data centres
Data centres are the main enablers of the digital economy. Data centres facilitate a wide range of activities across government, business and society. They play a key role in the digital infrastructure and entail energy efficiency. With annual double digit growth, Dutch data centres are of great value to the Dutch economy as they bring revenue and employment. Aside from the direct influence, data centres have a remarkably positive effect onforeign direct investments, indirect revenue and indirect employment.
“Data centres are the main enablers of the digital economy”
Everything that happens online takes place in a data centre. Data centres make up the heart of the digital infrastructure and are its foundation. This infrastructure includes internet exchanges, cloud exchanges, cloud providers, web hosting providers, internet backbone carriers, content delivery networks, internet access providers and fiber operators. All are centered in data centres to enable the Internet and online services to function accordingly.
In a nutshell, our digitally driven lives would come to a halt without data centres.
Source: the Dutch Datacenter Association