Data Center Talk Library

Do you want to learn more about data centers?  Are you new to the field and need to get up to speed on data centers in general?  Are you an experienced veteran and want to research specific data center issues?  Maybe you have just been promoted into a position with more responsibility for a data center.  In any case, this is a good place to start getting better informed.
(This list reflects the curator’s background: it is somewhat US-biased and contains lots of facilities information.  If you have any resources that should be added to this list, please send a recommendation to media at datacentertalk.com  and we will add them in our list.

Free Resources

• A wealth of useful information about the design and management of data centers
• 42U – Brief tips on data center best practices
• HP – Data center design
• (registration required)
• Wikipedia : Random data center information
• James Hamilton’s Blog – Amazon Web Services’ chief architect shares a wealth of ideas and information about data centers (and other things).
• Facebook’s Open Compute Project – “We started a project at Facebook a little over a year ago with a pretty big goal: to build one of the most efficient computing infrastructures at the lowest possible cost. We decided to honor our hacker roots and challenge convention by custom designing and building our software, servers and data centers from the ground up – and then share these technologies as they evolve.”
• The Open Data Center Alliance – “The Open Data Center Alliance^SM is an independent organization that gives stakeholders a voice in shaping the future of cloud computing.”

Training, Certifications and Professional Networking

• AFCOM – “AFCOM, the leading association of data center management professionals, is a dynamic community providing a forum for discussion, learning and problem-solving.”
• The Uptime Institute – Originators of the Reliability Tiers criteria for data center design, TUI continues to influence the data center industry with business intelligence, educational resources, symposia and professional services.
• Disaster Recovery Institute International – DRII offers education and certification for Disaster Recovery professionals.
• The International Consortium for Organizational Resilience – Offers a variety of data center courses and certifications.
• CNet Training – Offers several data center certifications.
• CompTIA – Offers many IT-related certifications and educational resources.
• Marist College – “The Institute for Data Center Professionals (IDCP) at Marist College was founded in 2004 with funding from the National Science Foundation and has been a leader in providing affordable, convenient, and quality educational programs that are 100% online and asynchronous covering topics that are relevant to professionals working in data center operations and/or enterprise computing environments.”

Magazines

• Data Center Journal
• Mission Critical
• The Processor
• Disaster Recovery Journal

Books

• ASHRAE Datacom Series— *ALL* about data center cooling.
• Cloud Computing: Technologies and Strategies of the Ubiquitous Data Center, Brian J. S. Chee and Curtis Franklin Jr. (2010)
• – A pocket reference for installing IT equipment
• Grow a Greener Data Center, Douglas Alger (2009)
• The Green and Virtual Data Center, Greg Schulz (2009)
• Foundation of Green IT: Consolidation, Virtualization, Efficiency, and ROI in the Data Center, Marty Poniatowski (2009)
• Business Continuity Planning for Data Centers and Systems: A Strategic Implementation Guide, Ronald H. Bowman (2008)
• Virtualization For Dummies, Bernard Golden (2007)
• Build the Best Data Center  Facility for Your Business, Douglas Alger (2005)
• Administering Data Centers: Servers, Storage, and Voice over IP, Kailash Jayaswal (2005)
• Enterprise Data Center Design and Methodology, Rob Snevely (2002) – An older book, but introduces the concept of “rack signature,” a powerful and versatile technique for capacity planning.

Standards

• TIA 942, Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers (hardcopy highly recommended due to severe restrictions on the digital version)
• ANSI/BICSI 002-2011, Data Center Design and Implementation Best Practices (hardcopy or CD-ROM highly recommended due to severe restrictions on the electronic version)

Feel free to open at discussion at http://www.datacentertalk.com/forum/

Ken B