Trending
Who actually uses and depends on data centers? The short answer is: almost everyone. They are woven into nearly every aspect of our modern lives.
Businesses and institutions of all sizes lease data center resources to host their applications, save information, and store files. They depend on these cloud services (networked data centers) to deliver the services we use and the products we purchase every day.
If every business, bank, manufacturer, school, healthcare facility, and government office had to set up and maintain its own individual computer infrastructure, it would consume significantly more energy than relying on shared, centralized data centers. Consolidating multiple computer rooms into one efficient center yields powerful results. In fact, research supported by the U.S. Department of Energy shows that consolidation and modernization into data centers produce significant overall resource and energy savings compared to standalone company servers.
How do each of us depend on--and by our daily habits, promote--data centers? When we open an app on a cell phone, check our email, stream a movie, post on social media, save photos to the cloud, play an online game, swipe a credit card, online banking, or do online anything, we are actively using a data center. Every digital action we take drives the need for this expansion.
At the same time, local concerns regarding noise, utility strain, and long-term community planning are entirely legitimate and deserve serious consideration.
Ultimately, we face a choice. We can adopt reasonable regulations to manage growth responsibly, or we can oppose local infrastructure development while simultaneously demanding the very digital services that require it. I urge our community to choose a balanced path of responsible stewardship.
Greg Nichols is Marshalltown’s Ward 3 city councilor.