Business Continuity in Data Centers and Seismic Isolation Applications

Introduction

Data storage capabilities of businesses depend on the characteristics of computer components and storage infrastructure as well as demand for data traffic and high-speed access. To protect the data properly and enable businesses to operate towards business needs, controlled environments with suitable infrastructures are essential (Lemahieu et al., 2018). These environments are consolidated with computer and network hardware including web and application servers, storage subsystems and application software for suitable management of gathering, storing, processing, recovering and distributing the data. Information technology (IT) initiatives can lower the costs of business operations and sustain the functions in data storage environments. In accordance with international standards, an architectural approach that relies on the design of location and arrangement of energy, telecommunication, climatization and automation is required (Dutta et al., 2015). These applications are utilized under “data center” framework. Cocchiara et al. (2008) state that most business systems are mission-critical and there is an increasing need for investments in data center facilities and related technologies.

Data centers play a vital role to respond data services requests of businesses. They provide a flexible environment and constant communication for all types of large quantities of data to meet the demands of both traditional and internet based companies. These massive networking infrastructures are complex, well secured facilities to house all of the information related to the business operations. As shown in Table 1, Cisco (2018) reports that global data center traffic is estimated to quadruple by 2021 and the data center workloads will nearly triple by 2021. These strategic computing resources have various areas that connect physical components such as high performance computers, servers, caches, switches, firewalls and other networking hardware with cables and fibers. As an IT initiative, the business goals of the data centers include business continuance, security, integration of applications and data storage consolidation (Arregoces and Portolani, 2004). These goals address a strategic direction for businesses and provide a quantifiable impact on operations.

*estimated numbers

Source: Cisco, 2018