Data Center Management

Why Trust Techopedia

What Does Data Center Management Mean?

Data center management refers to a small number of employees who have been designated and hired to manage large data sets and hardware systems that are usually part of a large distributed network. The data center is responsible for the management of significant amounts of data and the hardware required to store it and distribute it to users.

Advertisements

Data center management plays a crucial role in protecting data and keeping it secure so as to avoid data security breaches. The hosted computer environment within a data center must be explicitly managed, but most of the management is conducted in an automated fashion, thus saving hiring and energy costs. Data centers can be managed remotely and may not even house actual employees.

Functions of data center management include upgrading hardware and software/operating systems, managing data distribution and storage, backup regimes, emergency planning and some technical support.

Techopedia Explains Data Center Management

While human oversight in data management has been reduced, some IT professionals are still required to design, operate and manage computing and housing architecture.

A large company, such as a telecommunications company, may have IT professionals that remotely manage the data center. Other times, large data clearinghouses manage electronic health records (EHR) for hospitals that may lack the space for all of their computer servers. Insurance companies also enlist data center management through data clearinghouses.

Data center management can also come into play in the telecommunications arena. Customer service representatives can work on-site in various offices across the country, the world, or from the employees’ own homes. Meanwhile, consumer orders are processed and managed in one large data center located elsewhere.

The advantages of data center management include cost savings, especially when the data centers are green. Within all data management centers, fewer employees are needed as a result of automation, allowing agencies and businesses to experience growth without having to allocate space for their servers or operating systems.

Advertisements

Related Terms

Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert
Margaret Rouse
Technology Expert

Margaret is an award-winning technical writer and teacher known for her ability to explain complex technical subjects to a non-technical business audience. Over the past twenty years, her IT definitions have been published by Que in an encyclopedia of technology terms and cited in articles by the New York Times, Time Magazine, USA Today, ZDNet, PC Magazine, and Discovery Magazine. She joined Techopedia in 2011. Margaret's idea of a fun day is helping IT and business professionals learn to speak each other’s highly specialized languages.