Ever wondered where the contents on your browser come from, the Facebook pictures, videos, comments, Youtube videos and various websites you visit for information? The answer is DATA CENTERS.
A data center is a facility with thousands, in some cases hundreds of thousands of servers installed in them for the purpose of serving content. A server in itself is a computer like your desktop computer that stores and delivers contents to internet users. Nowadays these servers are specially optimized for better performance.
Here’s how it works
When you upload your pictures on Facebook, it goes to one of the Facebook’s data centers in Europe or U.S, then it is fetched back to display on your device.
Google and Facebook have datacenters containing hundreds of thousands of servers all over U.S and Europe. There are other companies like Equinix who runs large commercial data centers, where another tier of companies rent the servers and host websites that you visit frequently for content.
In Nigeria, companies like MTN, GLO, Maineone cable etc have data centers located in Nigeria. The reason we still host most of our contents abroad is a topic for another day.
