Most people have heard the term, “firewall” in reference to the internet although not everyone is sure exactly what it means or does.  If you work for a corporation, perhaps you have tried to connect to the internet from the company computer but kept receiving messages that the connection could not be made.  The reason is that the company has installed a firewall.  With this, the network for that company is protected from potential hackers, viruses, and so on.

If you are like most people, you have probably worked very hard on a project, trusting your computer to keep the information safe only to have it all lost.  Lost files are not something new to computer users and in addition to being extremely frustrating, in many instances this means lost money for a company as important proposals are gone and not enough time to redo them.

Companies across the country are now using data centers to ensure their business is maintained safely and securely.  Although data centers were popular prior to 09/11, today, they are viewed as critical resources for companies small to large.  A data center is a facility that houses a company’s internet business in an environment that is safe.  These centers are manned 24 hours a day with trained security, offer safe networking, customer floors where temperatures are maintain at an even temperatures, fiber optic cabling, redundant power, fire suppression systems, and so on.  To give you a better idea what you would find in state of the art data centers, consider the following:

Millions of people around the country worry about intruders breaking into their home or office.  For this reason, they choose a form of intrusion detection to not just detect intruders but to hopefully deter them.  Because of problems with home invasion and break-ins at work, intrusion detection devices have become standard equipment for many people.  In fact, the number of people using this type of protection is on the rise.

Data compression is a way of storing data in a format, requiring less space than normal.  When you hear of data “compression”, this is the same as data “packing”.  Although data compression is beneficial in a number of ways, it is highly effective in communications since it enables devices to transmit the same amount of data but in fewer bits.  Best of all, it takes less time.  Although there are numerous techniques, just a few have become standard.