Data Center Glossary

C

Colocation (Colo)

Renting space, power, and cooling in a third-party data center for your equipment.

Carrier Hotel

Data center with extremely high network carrier density, serving as major interconnection point.

Cross-Connect

Physical cable connecting two customers or a customer to a carrier within a facility.

H

Hyperscale

Massive data centers (100MW+) built by cloud giants with custom infrastructure.

Hot Aisle / Cold Aisle

Configuration separating hot exhaust and cold intake air for efficient cooling.

I

Internet Exchange Point (IXP)

Physical location where networks connect to exchange traffic directly.

Interconnection

Direct private connections between networks, carriers, or clouds within a data center.

K

kW (Kilowatt)

Unit of power (1,000 watts). Colocation is typically priced per kW.

kWh (Kilowatt-hour)

Unit of energy (1 kW for 1 hour). Used for utility billing.

L

Latency

Time delay for data to travel between points, measured in milliseconds (ms).

Liquid Cooling

Cooling method bringing coolant directly to servers/chips for high-density AI workloads.

M

MW (Megawatt)

Unit of power (1,000 kW). Large data centers measured in MW capacity.

Meet-Me Room (MMR)

Room where carriers and customers interconnect their networks.

N

N+1 Redundancy

Having one more component than required so one can fail without impact.

2N Redundancy

Fully duplicating all critical components for fault tolerance.

P

PUE (Power Usage Effectiveness)

Ratio of total facility power to IT power. 1.0 is perfect; 1.2 excellent; 1.6 average.

PDU (Power Distribution Unit)

Device distributing power to servers in a rack, often with monitoring.

T

Tier Classification

Uptime Institute's 4-tier system: Tier 1 (basic) to Tier 4 (fault-tolerant).

U

UPS (Uninterruptible Power Supply)

Battery system providing instant backup power during outages until generators start.

W

Wholesale Colocation

Large-scale (1MW+) colo with dedicated space, lower rates, longer terms.

WUE (Water Usage Effectiveness)

Liters of water used per kWh of IT energy. Lower is better.