A hyperscale data center is an extremely large, high-density facility designed to support cloud computing needs. It’s typically used by companies that require massive amounts of storage and processing power for their applications. Some hyperscale data centers have hundreds of thousands, if not millions, of servers housed within them.
According to market intelligence firm International Data Corporation, when a data center has more than 5,000 servers and more than 10,000 square feet, it is considered “hyperscale.” These hyperscale data centers have become so popular that there’s now an industry term for it called “hyperscale computing,” which refers to the use of high-performance computers by cloud service providers.
They’re built on a scale that is unmatched by traditional enterprise datacenters. These companies have the resources to build custom solutions for their unique needs while still maintaining high availability and performance. The result is an architecture that delivers significant cost savings over traditional data center designs while providing better reliability than smaller infrastructures.
The need for these massive business-critical setups designed to efficiently manage robust, scalable applications are often associated with big data-producing companies such as Google, Amazon, Facebook, IBM, and Microsoft. They’re typically built in areas with low costs of power and cooling. The scale of these facilities can be hundreds of thousands or even millions of square feet. And the cost to build them is equally large, ranging from $100 million to over $1 billion per facility.
The benefits of using a hyperscale data center include increased security, faster performance times, and lower costs due to economies of scale. These facilities are able to provide businesses with all the resources they need without having them pay for anything they don’t use.
Hyperscale data centers also offer flexible terms so companies can upgrade their services when necessary without any long-term commitments or penalties if they want out early on in the contract term. By the end of 2021, the total number of hyperscale data centers exceeded 700.
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