The modern data center has evolved from a facility containing an on-premises infrastructure to one that connects on-premises systems with cloud infrastructures where networks, applications and workloads are virtualized in multiple private and public clouds.

Enterprise data centers are typically constructed and used by a single organization for their own internal purposes. These are common among tech giants.

Colocation data centers function as a kind of rental property where the space and resources of a data center are made available to the people willing to rent it.

Managed service data centers offer aspects such as data storage, computing, and other services as a third party, serving customers directly.

Cloud data centers are distributed and are sometimes offered to customers with the help of a third-party managed service provider.