On May 17th, 2005, the first Internet Day was declared, being the tool in which most global communications are settled.
This network of human and corporate communications and, in a short-term future, of Artifical Intelligence, has integrated transversally in every social sphere, making the human interactions more agile, and accelerating the development of enterprises, as well as investigation, and favoring technological and health advances.
However, we can not understand the Internet without the Data Centers that work as the base for it. Data Centers are the base supporting the Internet, hosting the access to public and private nodes. These infrastructures have shown to be a fundamental piece in the development of our lives, most notably during the Covid-19 pandemic: remote work, messenger apps, social media and streaming platforms did not fail thanks to the resilience of the Data Center infrastructure.
Historic overview of Data Centers
Data Centers, also known as Colocation Centers, play a fundamental role in easing the correct functioning of the global telecommunications network. These infrastructures manage an inmense volume of data and offer an uninterrupted service to the users connected to the networks. Despite this, Data Centers did not appear from overnight, but it was an evolution derived from the needs of accesibility generated by the Internet.
Data Center precursors
Even though it is true that we did not see what we today consider a Data Center until the mid 90’s, since half of the 20th century, we witnessed the precursors of the modern rack of servers. They were equipments with a very limited data processing capabilities in comparison with the modern technologies. The ENIAC computer weighted 27 tons and occupied 160 square meters, and for many, is the main precursor of a Colocation Data Center.
The space management of this computing equipment was complicated, and companies had to house this pieces of technology in massive spaces, having, in occasions, to occupy entire floors, and saving analogically the information of their clients.
The development of the Colocation technology
As the computing needs of enterprises and the data traffic grew, the companies needed a better connectivity and Internet services. It was during the boom of the “dotcom” companies that the need of specific spaces scalable to demand grew significantly.
In the beggining, only great enterprises, with large economic capacity, could afford using these facilities, but as the digital economy evolved, with tendencies such as e-commerce, more companies needed connectivity and server housing spaces external to their organizations.
Thus, several companies appeared, offering places where to host a web server and providing the connectivity these activities demanded.
At the same time, the arrival of the Cloud technology, coming from the tech giants, helped democratize digitalization in all types of enterprises, increasing the computing needs and changing the paradigm of the Colocation business, converting it to what we know today.
Modern Day Data Centers
As the user traffic in the Internet grows, new needs were created in terms of connectivity. Streaming platforms and the new communication tools designed for remote work accelerated the development of new infrastructures and technologies that can house these levels of data processing: Hyperscaler Data Centers. These facilities unify data management in infrastructures equipped and controlled with the necessary elements to pursue the highest levels of efficiency in electric consumption and lesser environmental impact.
The Internet today is more stable, accesible and reliable than ever, perfected after more than half a century since its inception. Data Centers seek to ensure the quality of the data and access to all users, managing an ever-growing information volume with high scalability capacities.
The future of the Internet is now focused in the sinergy with physical objects, also known as IoT (Internet of Things), as well as the increment in online services, through videogames, cloud services, streaming platforms, social media, e-commerce and the consequential increase of Data Traffic that these services imply. We are witnessing a revolution in data usage and management and in the demand of space for it. A revolution in which systems that make change possible must be considered critical in order to ensure the development of the digital economy.