A data center (DC) is the physical space used for housing servers and associated IT infrastructure like network, storage, data backups, and security, among others, for running IT and business applications. A data center needs to have basic infrastructure that includes a raised floor, redundant power supplies, cable trays, environmental controls like air conditioning and fire suppression, among others, and redundant data communication connections. Third-party hosting service providers like SunGard and Equinix keep these things ready and charge customers to host their servers/storage/network devices on a per rack or per sq. ft. basis. Some large organizations create their data centers from the ground up.