HYPERSCALE
What makes a data centre hyperscale ?
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The term hyperscale isn ’ t a protected one , and the lines between hyperscale facilities and enterprise , colocation and telecom data centres can sometimes become blurred . However , there are a few widely agreed-upon characteristics that separate hyperscale facilities from their counterparts :
Hyperscale data centres are owned and operated by the companies they support , usually a Tier One operator like AWS , Apple or Facebook , as opposed to a Colocation data centre , which leases its capacity to third parties .
Hyperscale facilities are big . Most experts tend to agree that any data centre with more than 500 cabinets , or at least 10,000 square feet of floor space , is a hyperscaler . Usually , a facility with 40MW or less capacity is considered to be an enterprise data centre .
Hyperscale facilities have the ability to get much , much bigger . Think about scale as a verb . Hyperscale data centres are built to be expanded to meet the ever-growing demands of the companies that build them .
The ability to functiont at hyperscale . The potential challenges of handling such huge quantities of data mean that hyperscale facilities are designed to a different sttandard than smaller data centres .
DECEMBER 2020