Determining and Analyzing Data Center Issues

Running a data center is not easy. It is a lot more than putting some servers in a rack. There are many issues that are constantly bothering data center owners. Here, I am listing some of those issues:

Location, Location, Location:

Which location is the best for setting up Data center? Does your data center prepare for Mega-disasters? The tsunami, nuclear catastrophe, and myriad other disasters can ruin your facility and infrastructure. Recently, due to build from the shock absorbers materials with good planning helped the data center to survive from massive earthquake in Japan.

Power and Power Availability:

Electrical power is a major concern. To meet demand for computing and expectations for 24/7 power availability, data centers often faces the issue of energy consumption. The energy usage in data center is increasing and if loss of power or power fluctuation occurs, it could destroy huge amounts of valuable data. The main challenge for data center is to provide dense computing environments that could reduce cost and increase efficiency.  You can also think of installing alternative sources of energy, such as solar arrays, natural gas turbines, wind power, fuel cells, and hydro power. However, you need to consider whether such power sources will deliver a return on investment in the near future.

Cooling:

What can data center managers do to combat rising cost of cooling solution in data center?  Generally cooling infrastructure of data center has chillers, compressors and air handlers, air conditioners. However, water can also be used to help cool cabinet racks. You can consider of portable air-conditioning equipment on a daily, weekly, monthly, or long-term rental basis to satisfy cooling requirements of data center. Data centers have adopted a pattern of cold aisles for the electronic and blocking airflow.
In you data center if you have more room for air flow, less energy will be consumed in cooling.

Arranging backup power:  

What will you do, if power goes off in the data center? In business, “continuity” is the keyword. You need to ensure you are able to offer continuous power supply to the data center. For this purpose you have to do the right selection of and installation of backup generators.

Look cable management systems:

Now, I want to discuss about a spaghetti mess of cables. It is painful and time consuming, but you cannot escape from it. Should I install copper or fiber, or combination of both? The answer of this question lies in variety of factors. You need to consider the time of the data center operation. Copper wires are preferred over many fiber systems due to the cost of pathways and spaces. You need proper cabling inside the storage device rack, the server device rack and the physical network layer.  For the efficient cable management,   you have to make sure that cables are dressed and labeled properly.

Security:

What are the security arrangements in your data center? How safe is your data form physical and cyber threat? One security mistake can probably lead to misuse of data. For most of the data center owners, it is not feasible and affordable to get JamesBond style data center. However, data center owners have to protect physical and computing environment of the data center.  A durable, reliable, secure, power-efficient, self-sustaining data center can be made with the proper use of cutting –edge technology and design. The cyber security can be attained by adopting features like password protection, protocol security, firewalls, encryption service and virus protection.  To save the data center against physical threats and intrusions you need to pay attention on selecting right spot for the facility, use of bollards and surveillance. Trees, boulders and gulleys and use bomb-resistant laminated glasses can protect the infrastructure from physical threats.

Staff to run the facility:

How many employees would be required to run a data center? It depends on your business. What are you doing, whether housing or hosting? You need staff working for various departments like communications, systems, database, help desk, production.

 

You can also keep up to date with current trends and technology by visiting Data Center Talk where we keep you informed on important changes as they occur.

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