Cloud data centers (also known as cloud computing data centers) store IT infrastructure resources that can be shared by a large number of customers, from dozens to millions, via the Internet.
Many of the largest cloud data centers, known as hyperscale data centers, are operated by major cloud service providers such as Amazon Web Services (AWS), Google Cloud Platform, IBM Cloud, Microsoft Azure, and Oracle Cloud Infrastructure. In reality, most major cloud providers operate many hyperscale data centers throughout the world. Cloud service providers typically maintain smaller, edge data centers that are closer to cloud customers (and their consumers). Edge data centers can assist in reducing latency in real-time, data-intensive workloads like big data analytics, artificial intelligence (AI), and content delivery applications, hence increasing overall application performance and user experience.
Most modern data centers, including in-house on-premises data centers, have transitioned from traditional IT design, in which each application or task operates on its own dedicated hardware, to cloud architecture, in which physical hardware resources (CPUs, storage, and networking) are virtualized. Virtualization frees these resources from their physical constraints and pools them into capacity that may be dispersed across several workloads and applications in whatever quantities are needed.
Virtual also enables software-defined infrastructure (SDI), infrastructure that can be deployed, configured, run, maintained, and ‘spun down’ programmatically, with no human involvement.
The combination of cloud architecture and SDI provides numerous benefits to data centers and their customers, including the following:
