Internet Without Data Centers: Can It Really Work?

Allow me to ask you a hypothetical question: What if the Internet did not have any data centres? Sounds crazy, right? I know I would go into a panic if I lost my Wi-Fi connectivity for even 10 seconds! Just thinking about it makes my head spin. So, the internet without data centers, is it possible?

Data Centres Are Essential​

Have you ever thought about what enables the Internet to function as it does? Data centres power almost everything we use on the Internet today, including Netflix, online banking, and AI technology — as the data centre, the Internet (the "brain") is therefore dependent on data centres.

This means that without data centres, many of the activities that rely upon them would not be possible.

Examples of things that would not exist without data centres are:

• Streaming Services
• Online Gaming
• Email Services
• Cloud Storage Services
• Social Media Services (and all of the associated memes, etc.)

The four primary functions that data centres perform are:

• They house all of the digital contents of the world;
• They manage requests for content via the internet;
• They are constantly running applications and services, in both active and passive fashion; and
• They create safe storage (i.e., backups) of your data.

It is fair to say that without data centre, the entire internet would cease to function nearly instantly.

Can Data Centres Be Replaced?​

There has been an emerging concept of creating a distributed (or decentralised) internet. This would consist of using smaller devices to do the same work as the large centralised data centre. This idea is often referred to as "edge computing" since computing occurs much closer to the end user than it currently does.

Although the idea of edge computing sounds great, it does not replace data center. Edge computing may improve performance, but edge computing rely on the existence of large data centres in order to function properly.

An analogy to help describe the contrast of edge computing to data centres is the scenario of trying to replace an airplane with a bicycle. They can both transport you from one place to another, however, under normal circumstances you would not be able to cross an ocean using a bicycle.

Is an Internet Without Data Centers Possible?​

It is my belief that at the present time an internet without data centres is simply infeasible. Of course, we can always look for ways to make data centres smaller, faster, and/or more environmentally friendly, but in order to function effectively as a society and economy we must have data centres — period!