The Internet is a bottomless ocean filled with millions of terabytes of information. Every day people put a lot of videos, pictures, documents and other content on the Web, which is easy to retrieve even after many years. Where is it all stored? Where is the Internet located?
The Mysterious Vault
All the information that can be seen on a particular site is stored on servers – specialized computers with a lot of memory. They process, store and output the available content to the user. The aggregate works autonomously, without direct human involvement.
The content itself is accumulated on ordinary hard disks – hard drives. Whenever a person clicks on the desired site, the computer at first refers to a DNS server that looks up the domain name and the desired ip-address, and allows you to open the desired web site.
The farther the user is from such a server, the longer the request goes to him. This affects the speed of the Internet – the server response time. The lower it is, the faster we get information.
The network of servers is the Internet. All this wealth is stored in data centers – specialized buildings where servers and communication facilities are located. This is a bank of information that is protected and cared for accordingly. Such information repositories exist in every major city.
How does a Data Center work?
Data centers work on a commercial basis: they rent out space on their hard drives. Thus, it is possible to create a site, the information from which will be accumulated on a rented server or a small part of it.
Large organizations such as banks, search engines, advanced Internet portals, etc. build their own storage. For example, the Yandex company, which has erected its own data centers in several countries.
Storage facilities are strictly regulated. Data centers have an uninterrupted power supply. Sudden power outages are backed up by diesel generators and flywheels – inertia accumulators in the form of massive rotating wheels.
The storage facilities are equipped with state-of-the-art fire suppression and cooling systems. During operation, hard drives and servers generate heat, and therefore tend to overheat. To avoid this, excess heat is removed by air conditioning and ventilation.
Thus, all the information accumulated on the Internet is located in data centers.