summarize this: Information technology (IT) infrastructure is built upon both physical and virtual components. These components support the infrastructure’s operations, storage, processing of data, and data analysis.

Infrastructure can be centralized in a data center or spread across multiple data centers. These decentralized data centers can be controlled by the organization (owner) or by a third-party, such as a cloud provider or a colocation facility.

While the terminology may seem hard to follow, here’s an overview of what makes an infrastructure, down to each component and IT support services.

Infrastructure Components
Data Center Infrastructure
This infrastructure supports the data center hardware with power, cooling, and building elements. This hardware includes:

Servers;
Storage subsystems;
Networking devices—switches, routers, cabling; and,
Network appliances—i.e., network firewalls.
To ensure that data is secure and protected from theft or malicious damage, only authorized personnel should have access to the infrastructure. So for IT infrastructure security, data centers also have physical security for the data center building. This type of security includes:

Electronic key entry;
Video and human surveillance; and,
Controlled access to servers and storage.
Internet Infrastructure
Outside of the data center is the Internet infrastructure, which is built by Internet service providers (ISPs). The components of Internet infrastructure include transmission media, such as:

Fiber-optic cables;
Satellites;
Microwave antennas;
Routers;
Repeaters;
Aggregators; and,
Load balancers.
Cloud Computing
Cloud computing has changed the design and use of IT infrastructures.

Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) Model
In this model, businesses access a cloud provider’s data center services and infrastructure. This model provides flexible, on-demand computing.

Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) Model
A third-party provider hosts software, hardware, servers, storage, and other components for IT infrastructure.

Infrastructure Management
The design of IT infrastructure must also support infrastructure management. In the form of software tools, IT administrators can view the infrastructure easily as a whole, or access details about any device in the infrastructure, making for efficient management. They are also able to optimize resources for various workloads and deal with the impact of changes to those resources.

Systems management tools help IT teams to:

Configure and manage network devices, storage, and servers;
Support remo