What is Data Center Security?

Whether a business, or a customer, data is integral part of any kind of exchange of goods or services. This data can be in many forms. As an example, the way an organization functions, the ideas an organization is working on, and the internal policies of the organization is all a form of data that needs to remain private to an organization. 

As for a customer, personal details like phone number, bank account number, or say browsing history on chrome are all things that need not be shared widely. 

Not just that, wonder how catastrophic it would be for a business to accidentally delete the entire catalogue of items! Also, think how businesses can generate leads by analyzing a user’s data, like search history for example. 

The crux is to keep the data safe, confidential, backed up and moreover, to use and process it for benefits. But with the rate at which data is growing today, how can all this be ensured and afforded? The answer is, by using data centers. 

What is a Data Center? 

A data center is a place where a business stores all their data and applications. It is nothing but a physical location where all computing and storage devices are present to store, process and fetch data. The main aim of using data centers is to minimize the costs by using resources in a distributed and thus, efficient manner. A data center usually consists of routers, firewalls, storage devices and servers, etc. 

Earlier, these data centers were housed on the premises of the business. But with time, as data generation increased, the need for more servers and space increased. Extending a data storage unit, however, is not just expensive but difficult to maintain as well, resulting in huge costs for the organization just for data storage, servers and Hardwares at different locations. 

Thus, a shift was made to modern data centers which provide the service of data storage and virtual infrastructure in exchange for a reasonable amount of money which is aided with cloud technology. 

Now since a data center is storing the critical data of a business, it is their responsibility to keep it safe from breach, changes and loss. That is where the Data Center Security comes into the picture. 

What is Data Center Security?

Data Center Security is the set of measures and practices deployed to protect a data center from threats and vulnerabilities. The main aim of Data center security is to ensure CIA – Confidentiality, Integrity and Availability of data of a particular business. 

It includes both physical and virtual methods of protecting not just the data center in terms of hardware, but software as well. Moreover, it covers all components of a data center ranging from networks and servers to routers and firewalls. 

The Need for Data Center Security 

Businesses might use data centers for a variety of reasons like reducing storage costs or for data recovery in case of catastrophic failures. No matter what the use is, there is always critical data associated with a data center which needs to be kept intact. 

Wonder what will happen to the data in case of a flood if the data center is destroyed? What will happen if cooling systems are not in place and the entire data center burns to ash? These are things that a Data Center has to keep themselves prepared for. 

Moreover, cyber-attacks are a huge threat to data belonging to an organization. What will happen if all your mails are leaked because of some breach in G-Mail’s or Outlook’s security system? It would be a disaster!

A Data center is trusted by organizations to keep their data safe which are in turn then trusted by customers. Any breach at any point will disrupt half the business because no user would like to be a part of a service where their data is not kept confidential or safe. 

Also, not all the data stored by an organization needs to have the same level of security. Something might be there which can be given to people for reading, while there might be data that requires special privileges. Managing all this will become really tedious for businesses. 

Thus, to keep the businesses growing profitably without having to worry about data security, some security measures are integral to a Data center. 

How is Data Center Security Achieved?

Although there are a number of technologies (two of which will be discuss later) that are used to achieve data center security, the idea can be broadly classified into Physical and Virtual Security. 

And naturally, it has to be like this. Because we just don’t need protecting the data over the internet and network, but also the systems or the hardware that contains that data. 

Physical Security 

Physical security refers to the security deployed to prevent access, damage or modification to hardware devices and the data center either by any person or by natural causes like fire and flood. 

These are some things that check physical security at a data center-

1. Location – A data center should be away from places that might pose a security risk. Such areas include busy roads, chemical factories, and earthquake prone areas, etc. 
2. Entry to the data center – A data center should not allow entry to unrequired people. They should also have less entry points and windows. Any person visiting the place should be authenticated using identity cards or other technologies like a passcode or fingerprint scanner. 
3. Surveillance – A data center should have properly functioning good quality cameras at strategic locations along with security guards to further aid the process. 
4. Cooling systems – A very important concept in a data center is the maintaining of right temperatures and avoiding heat buildup so that a fire does not start. Thus, it is crucial to have the right cooling systems in place. 
5. Preparedness to calamities – Measures to back up or protect data in case of fires, earthquakes, floods and other natural or accidental calamities should be in place and accessible quickly. 

Software/Virtual Security 

Storing data in a data center is not all. It also needs to be managed by administrators for certain purposes. Since the location of a data center needs not be in proximity to that of the administrator, virtualization is used to provide a virtual system to the administrator from which he/she can control the data in the data center. 

However, this involves the use of technologies like cloud that brings in cyber threats along with itself. And it is natural; anything where internet and networking is included, is prone to cyber-attacks. 

Here are some ways in which Virtual security is checked at data centers-

1. Layered Access – Not everyone in an organization needs to access the same data. Moreover, some data is required by people to only read, and they should not have the right to change, delete or add any new information. This all can be controlled by an administrator to make sure that the critical data remains safe. 
2. Intrusion prevention and detection systems – Intrusion prevention and detection systems like firewalls should be deployed to make sure that a threat is recognized before it does irreparable damage. 
3. Two-factor authentication – This is just an extension of layered access. Two factor or multi factor authentication can be used to prove identity and make sure the right access is given to the person demanding access. 
4. Using SIEM – SIEM or Security information and event management tool is a platform which allows constant monitoring of the security of a data center. It is aided with alarms and sensors and is used to make sure that access levels are not compromised. 
5. Checking vulnerabilities beforehand – Before deploying any application or data to a data center, they can be separately checked for possible vulnerabilities so that they can be fixed before they cause a major trouble. 

Technologies used for Data Center Security 

Now when you know about physical and virtual data center security methods, let us see some technologies that help in the same. 

Monitoring Systems

Monitoring systems are best to be deployed to keep an eye over people who enter the data center physically. Not only these will track the activities going on inside a data center but will also force the attackers to give up on malicious ideas because passing a camera would be pretty hard to do. 

Multi-factor Authentication 

As the name says, it is a method of verifying an identity, using not just one, but two or more elements. This way, finding both the elements to gain access within a limited amount of time (meaning the time of a session) would not be an easy task. 

This way unwanted users do not get access to critical information and in case they do, alerts are instantly generated. Multi-factor authentication can be done in various ways like using biometrics, government identification, or face recognition, etc. 

Levels of Security based on tiers

Not all data present in a data center requires the same set of access control and security systems. Thus, to efficiently use the space and resources, a data center is divided into 4 tiers. This is useful in seeing what kind of security measures should be deployed in each tier. 

1. Tier 1 – The lowest and simplest tier is Tier 1. It is generally used by small businesses with little sensitive data. Since it is at the lowest level, its downtime on yearly basis is the highest as compared to other tiers. 
2. Tier 2 – This is also used by small businesses, but the basic idea here is to distribute resources over the data center along with their own infrastructure. 
3. Both these tiers use the same resources and therefore, affecting down time for both tier users in case of any fault. 
4. Tier 3 – This tier stands out from the previous tiers since it used multiple resources for power and cooling. Therefore, in case of a failure of one resource, the other one covers up and there is almost no downtime. Moreover, this tier can be put under maintenance without having to stop services. Thus, the downtime on yearly basis is hardly around 2 hours. 
5. Tier 4 – This tier is also like tier 3 but it uses multiple resources for not just power and cooling, but for other things as well, thereby reducing the downtime even further. This is usually used by big businesses and the yearly downtime is hardly around 30 minutes. 

Needless to say, tier 4 is the best tier to be used.