Data Center
The standard height measurement unit for server racks in data centers.
What is a rack unit (U)?
This RAID level provides data striping without parity or mirroring, offering improved performance but no redundancy.
What is RAID 0?
This device provides emergency power when the main power fails, allowing for a safe system shutdown or bridging minor power outages.
What is an Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)?
This basic type of firewall examines packet headers without looking at the actual data content.
What is a packet filtering firewall or stateless firewall?
This protocol enables secure command-line access to network devices and servers over an unsecured network.
What is SSH (Secure Shell)?
This cooling approach separates hot and cold air in a data center by arranging server racks in alternating rows.
What is hot aisle/cold aisle configuration?
This storage technology uses flash memory for persistent data storage with no moving parts.
What is Solid State Drive (SSD)?
This measurement shows the maximum amount of power a server can draw, though actual consumption is typically lower.
What is nameplate power rating?
This firewall feature tracks the state of active connections and makes decisions based on the context of the traffic.
What is stateful inspection or stateful packet inspection (SPI)?
This hardware feature allows administrators to remotely access a server even when the operating system is not functioning.
What is out-of-band management or Integrated Lights-Out (iLO)/Integrated Dell Remote Access Controller (iDRAC)?
This metric measures how efficiently a data center uses energy by dividing total facility power by IT equipment power.
What is Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE)?
This protocol operates at the block level and is commonly used to connect servers to Storage Area Networks (SANs).
What is iSCSI (Internet Small Computer Systems Interface)?
This system automatically transfers the power supply from its primary source to a backup source when it detects a failure or outage in the primary source.
What is an Automatic Transfer Switch (ATS)?
This network security technology inspects packets at the application layer of the OSI model, enabling deeper analysis of network traffic.
What is Deep Packet Inspection (DPI)?
This industry standard protocol allows hardware components to be monitored and controlled independently of the CPU, firmware, and operating system.
What is IPMI (Intelligent Platform Management Interface)?
This data center classification tier (1-4) requires 99.995% uptime, fully redundant components, and multiple independent distribution paths.
What is Tier 4?
This distributed file system developed by Google is designed to provide efficient, reliable access to data using large clusters of commodity hardware.
What is Google File System (GFS) or Colossus?
This electrical safety feature in data centers prevents current from flowing through unintended paths (like humans), reducing shock hazards.
What is ground fault protection or ground fault circuit interrupter (GFCI)?
This type of firewall combines traditional firewall capabilities with intrusion prevention and application-level filtering.
What is a Next-Generation Firewall (NGFW)?
This remote management technology allows an administrator to view and interact with a server's console display from a remote location.
What is KVM over IP (Keyboard, Video, Mouse over IP)?
This architectural approach divides data center resources into independent zones to contain failures and enhance security, using techniques like microsegmentation.
What is fault domain isolation?
This technique reduces storage requirements by identifying and eliminating duplicate copies of repeated data, operating at either file or block level.
What is deduplication?
This strategy saves power by dynamically adjusting server performance based on workload needs, often implemented via CPU frequency scaling and core parking.
What is Dynamic Power Management or Dynamic Voltage and Frequency Scaling (DVFS)?
This firewall deployment architecture places two firewalls in sequence with a demilitarized zone (DMZ) in between, providing enhanced security.
What is a screened subnet or a dual-firewall architecture?
This infrastructure management approach uses code and APIs rather than manual processes or tools to provision, configure, and manage computer systems and network devices.
What is Infrastructure as Code (IaC)?