Prasa has started a series of mini-blog posts to examine the role of technology and data centers. It will cover the past, present, and future of technology and data centers, and how they are helping us in dealing with the pandemic. Previously we discussed the past of data centers with The evolution of data center and The evolution of cooling technology in the data center, today we will talk about the present aspect and discuss the role of data centers in the fight against the pandemic.
The major advantage we have in the fight against coronavirus as compared to the SARS outbreak of 2003 or the H1N1 outbreak of 2009 is the high level of available technology and the sophistication level of the data centers to manage this technology. The countries that are showing signs of recovery from the war against the COVID-19 virus have tapped into machine learning, big data, healthcare technology, etc, to track and contain the outbreak. The countries that are still fighting the spread of virus use technology to develop real-time forecasts and equip healthcare professionals and decision-makers with data that they can use to fight against this virus.
Data centers are the basis of almost every technology today and only a smooth functional data center can allow for seamless working of technology. Whether it is for intensive research for a cure or medics working to cure the infected, the processing happens at a data center, and the data is stored and retrieved from a data center. Let’s see a few more examples of the role technology and data centers are playing in helping the world fight and contain the coronavirus.
- Fighting against the virus – Healthcare facilities around the world are busy trying to contain and cure the patients of coronavirus. They use various machinery, equipment, and IoT devices with testers, sensors, and trackers to treat the infected and remotely treat and operate patients with other ailments so as to protect them from the virus, again enabled by a data center. The real-time data of outbreak analytics, guidelines from WHO and various professionals around the world help the healthcare providers chalk out the treatment plan and strategy for patients.
- Containing the virus – Digital information traversing through data centers has been paramount in containing the virus. Some of them are-
- The self-tracking mobile applications
- Authentic information from news portals
- Digital financial transactions and UPI payments to enable touch-free transactions
- Social media to spread awareness about the symptoms and precautions of the virus
- Helpline numbers, informative caller tunes, messages, automated voice messages, etc, via mobile phones.
- Finding a cure for the virus – As everybody awaits a cure, researchers are using big data, AI, supercomputers backed with world-class data centers to deliver a cure and a vaccine. The technology helps them effectively analyze the data to help the world by figuring out the best preparation to overcome the current pandemic and curate a response strategy for any future pandemics.
Data centers are playing a vital role today. In addition to being able to support modeling efforts and predicting the flow of the virus, they have aided the economy by allowing millions to work from home even as the load increased multiple times, financial transactions to take place uninterrupted without any contact, and allowed for social distancing by making the internet a virtual escape.
