Important Data Center Metrics You Should Know

January 3, 2013 By

               We all know that data center and both mechanical and electronic equipment within the facility are becoming energy efficient. There are a variety of standards, certificates and metrics that have emerged to measure the efficiency of the facility. Metrics and Standards are very important to perform accurate measurement of data center and its IT equipment. Standards and Certification programs can maintain the integrity of IT companies’ claims for energy efficiency. Following are some of the certifications, standards and metrics that companies are using to show the energy efficiency of their facility and equipment.

Carbon Intensity per Unit Data:

               Carbon Intensity is used to refer the ratio of carbon-di-oxide to energy. It is a measurement of the amount of carbon emissions per unit of fuel consumed. Akamai is one of the leading content delivery network has been reporting carbon emission related to cloud computing. Carbon emission related to cloud computing based services in the metrics of “CO2/ megabytes of data transferred”. This metric enables Akamai to compare cloud computing usage across industry and also in process of making this metric to available on a monthly basis to its clients. Greenpeace has praised Akamai for its transparent reporting of this metrics and has awarded highest grade for its transparency above all giant internet players like Apple, Google, Facebook and, IBM.

Power Usage Effectiveness (PUE):

                This is the leading metrics which shows how efficiently the data center is operating. PUE is the ratio of how much energy is consumed in running data center’s equipment to the energy consumed to run the overall data center. This metric was created by “The Green Grid”. If a data center consumes lot of energy for cooling and power conversion, the facility isn’t very efficient and its PUE rating will be very near to 2. If very little energy is consumed in power conversion and cooling then data center will have a PUE closer to one.

Leadership in Energy and Environmental Design (LEED):

                This is a certificate awarded by the U.S. Green Building Council. LEED council evaluates green credentials of the building and consider several factors like materials, water used, indoor environmental quality and, location along with the efficiency of the plant to award any one of the five certificates certified by U.S. Green Building Council.

American Society of Heating, Refrigerating and Air- Conditioning Engineers (ASHARE):

                This society is focused on building systems, indoor air quality, and sustainability, refrigeration and energy efficiency. ASHARE also publishes a series of standards and guidelines relating to HVAC (Heating, Ventilation, and Air-Conditioning) issues and

systems.

Energy Star:

                Environmental Protection Agency (EPA)’s energy star certification is one of the widely used certification program for computers and gadgets. This certification can also be used for data centers and building that runs many number of data centers.

PAR4:

                This metric measures server powers in different methods including peak power, transaction per watt, idle power and total utilization of power.PAR4 metric is developed my startup power Assure and enables servers of different generations

to one another in terms of energy consumption and efficiency. PAR4 is gaining huge response from Internet giants like Cisco, Intel and, Dell and have been working to incorporate this metric into their systems.

 

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Challenges of Cooling Data Centers

December 28, 2012 By

                One of the major critical challenges faced by modern data center is cooling system. Today’s IT system has created new cooling related problems. These are new problems which could have been foreseen when data centers were developed 30 years ago. Some of the challenges in the data center cooling process can be packed in the following categories:

  • Availability
  • Manageability
  • Lifecycle costs
  • Maintenance
  • Adaptability

For many data center adaptability requirements still remain as the biggest challenges regarding cooling. This challenge involves problem regarding cooling of high density rack system and uncertainty of timing, location and quantity of high density rack systems. The cooling system within a data center should be scalable and flexible and with some redundant cooling feature for consistent and steady performance. Cooling data centers’ requirements in regards to Lifecycle of the system shares many features in common with adaptable solution. Data centers need pre-engineered modular and standardized solutions.

Data centers are often unable to predict future load of a data center cooling system, even the prediction of load characteristic offer greater challenge. Once a proper design is established data centers have to perform some best cooling practices. Some of the cooling practices are given below:

Determine The Critical Load and Heat Load:

Determining load helps data centers to know how many number of cooling systems need to be deployed within the available space. Companies need to include heat conducted from surrounding space.

Establish Power requirements as per Rack Location Unit (RLU):

                The power density of data centers is defined based on the number of cabinets or racks available in data centers. Generally all manufacturers produce cabinets of the same size. The Rack Location Unit provides RLU power density, this density is increasing every year. The main challenge faced by data centers in predicting cooling for variable RLU densities.

Determine Room Power Distribution:

                There are two main decisions in determining room power distribution one is where to place PDU (Power Distribution Units) and where to run power cables under or over the floor.

Determine Cabinet Power Distribution:

                It is very essential to understand the impact of power distribution on cooling, as it is related to air flow within the cabinets.

Determining Suitable Cooling Methodology:

After determining the cooling zones helps you to decide the type of air conditioners will be suitable for your data center. We come across four types of air conditioners such as Air cooler, condenser water cooler, glycol cooler and Chilled cooler. In addition to these data center managers need to determine how heat from the data center will be removed and what type of cooling redundancy will be required for a particular method.

Establish Cooling Performance Monitoring System:

It is very important for data center to develop and deploy a monitoring system which is capable of monitoring each cabinet cooling zone, each row and each room. Once the effective cooling performance is reached for a particular load profile, we can expect some changes. So it’s suitable to include all the parameters so that equipments can be changed, added or moved quickly to cater the changes.

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Infrastructure and Design Tips to Help your Data Center to Go Green

December 27, 2012 By

                Data Centers are the factories of the 21st centuries.  Data Centers houses a lot of digital and mechanical equipments. Data Centers do not pollute the environment by emitting polluting fumes into the atmosphere like other old factories, but these big structures are no less scrutinized for their growing consumption of electricity. Energy consumed by data centers

are expected to raise 50% from 2011 to 2020. As demand for cloud storage grows exponentially, more facilities will be built which intern increases the demand for electricity and other resources. Data centers are already consuming 1.1 – 1.5% of the world’s total energy consumption in 2012, by 2020 they will consume almost 20% more than last year. Organizations are making an honest effort to find alternative methods of generating electricity without depending on local providers. Some of the IT giants like Microsoft (have plans to build data center which runs on Bio-gas), Google, HP, EMC, Dell and many more have already tested and implemented alternative methods of generating power. These companies are not only concentrating on power generation, but these companies are

concentrating more on improving efficiency of their data centers and design them according to U.S. Green Building Council to earn LEED Gold certificate.  LEED Gold certified data centers are the ones with high efficiency and doesn’t cause any sort of damage to the environment and human health.

                Following are some of the Data center infrastructure tips which help your data centers go green.

Access your Energy Efficiency:

                One of the key aspects of achieving green tag in your data center is power management. Data Center managers need to know and understand from where energy comes and how it is being distributed in the facility. This helps managers to cut down energy wastage. Designers and managers need to look for alternative methods of generating power which make them move even closer to LEED certification.

Renovate Your Cooling System:

                Focus your cooling racks and servers and also ensure reduce airflow by sealing off holes in walls, ceilings and floors with appropriate duct. This might help in increasing efficiency and also to reduce power consumption. Managers need to access and implement best accessories to their data centers which intern improves efficiency at a relatively low cost.

Release Your Redundancy:

                Many facilities invest in redundant cooling and heating systems which inflates your energy bills. Slash redundancy wherever possible and remove all idle hardware which is simply occupying space and consuming energy.

Virtualize Your Storage:

                Virtualization makes application mobile and shut down unnecessary servers. Virtualization helps in knowing the server space, mapping applications to a different physical location to gain more efficiency. Datacenter Virtualization plays one of the major roles in the quest towards Green data center.

Looking For Alternative Power Resource:

                One of the best ways to stay clean is to find alternative energy that works for your facility. Companies can think about installing heat pumps, wind energy, solar panels and evaporative cooling, these alternative methods can lower your cost and significantly reduce company’s environmental footprints.

                Efficient data centers is not just good for your organization but it is also a social and environmental responsibility to manage your facility’s operations.

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Inhibiting the IT equipment from overheating in winter

December 21, 2012 By

Many IT businesses face a new kind challenge that may take them by surprise completely. The challenge that we are talking about is keeping the heat-sensitive IT equipment in the server room or telecom closet cool during the cold-weather months, when the building is actually heated. Every kind of IT business andIT organization depend on the servers, telecom switches and other equipments. So this problem has become critical. If the  IT building is in design stage, then steps can be taken to prevent damage to the servers by creating a separate room with its own air-conditioning system. But most of the IT companies cannot afford to build a new server room in an already constructed building. To tackle this problem, IT companies have started using self contained ceiling-mount air conditioners to keep server room and closet cool, while the rest of the building is heated.

 

The Working of Self-Contained Air Conditioners

Conventional air conditioners consist of two separate units, one which contains a condenser and the other an evaporator coil. But self-contained air-conditioner has both a condenser and evaporator coil in a single unit. Inside the unit, cold refrigerant flows through copper tubing from the condenser to the evaporator coil. A fan blows over the coil thus pushing cold air out. A second fan pushes the hot exhaust air out through

the system’s built-in duct, which is directed into the crawl space above a drop ceiling. The excess moisture is removed from the air is automatically pumped out to a drain and in the portable units, disposed of manually. When there is no available space to direct the hot exhaust air into, self-contained, water-cooled units are now available.

 

Advantages of ceiling-mount air conditioners are

The benefits of self-contained, ceiling-mount air conditioners are:

• Low cost compared to other air-conditioners

• Quick and easy installation

• No extra condensing unit to install and maintain

• Flexible placement of air supply and return

• Easy connection to building control and fire alarm systems

 

Self-contained, ceiling-mount conditioners are notable for their low cost and quick, easy installation. Unless there are any special circumstances, an installation may take up to 4 hours. Self-contained, ceiling-mount air conditioners are smaller than other cooling systems, so they are much easier to fit into the limited crawl space.

Self-contained, ceiling-mount air conditioners are available in smaller capacities than precision-cooling systems, and have higher sensible cooling capacities than mini-split systems. Self-contained, ceiling-mount air conditioners use flexible air ducts for both supply and return. This helps the air conditioner itself to be placed anywhere in the crawl space.

Important conditions to look for in a Self-Contained, Ceiling-Mount Air Conditioner

Reliability: An air conditioning must be always reliable and that is a system built to the

highest quality standards.

The fan motors should be fully enclosed in protective housings to prevent dust from building up.

And then the sheet-metal panels should be checked to see if they have stress-relief notches at the bends and is the refrigeration unit hermetically sealed or has service valves which result in leakage.

These are the quality-oriented details which are indicators of high-quality equipment that is designed and manufactured with long-term reliability in mind.

 Established manufacturer: Look out for a company which has established itself in the market and also are the market leaders. They should also provide the service and support throughout North America and globally.

 

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Data Center Expansion Plan – Build or Buy?

December 20, 2012 By

Demand for data center space is exponentially growing. Data center organizations need to implement more hardware to process, store and manipulate big data. To implement more hardware companies need to buy more lands or need to partner with some existing data centers or acquire any existing facility. Companies of all sizes must go through a critical stage weather to build own data center or to lease an existing facility. Companies need to analyze some points like construction cost, commissioning and costs of maintaining and managing data center before evaluating the decision to build or buy.

Following are some of the key considerations before deciding whether to buy an existing facility or to buy a new facility:

1.       Build Time:

Typically construction of a new data center requires 12-18 months to complete. Suppose

an existing client require to expand their capacity and data center companies need provide the required space in a shorter time-frame, then constructing a new facility will not be a good idea. Most viable option is to co-locate data center space from some other organization or companies might think of acquiring a small data center.

2.       Ability to Scale

A traditionally build data centers have an expected life span of 10-15 years with a minimum of 5 refresh cycles. This might lead to overbuild, capital waste, costly infrastructure and less energy efficient as most of the time servers will be idle. Companies can lease data centers, typically leases are short term of about 3 to 5 years and this allows clients to increase data center space based on their needs. By co-locating companies can reduce cost and add more space quickly.

3.       Money:

The initial cost for constructing a new facility, installation cost can move up-to thousands of dollars.  Companies either get finance from some financing company to construct a new data center, in addition to these companies need to invest to maintain data centers. Companies can lease an existing data center facility by paying monthly or annually based on the contract and provide consistent services to their clients and can expand their space based on their needs.

4.       Location:

Location is one of the primary concerns for data centers for those companies who have planned to build  their own facility. Companies who have elected to buy a data center find local providers within 30 miles from the office. Finding co-location providers is a sensible option, companies can have a frequent visit to the facility. Some companies have an idea of partnering with a data centers that are remotely located in order to have quick disaster recovery or business continuity.

Advantages of Co-location:

  1. Reduced initial cost
  2. Enhanced security features
  3. No need to concentrate on the upgrade and technology changes.
  4. Can have access to a variety of service providers
  5. Faster time to market
  6. Can shrink or grow based on company needs

Some businesses might opt to build and maintain their own data centers and others consider leasing

third party data center. Start-up, small and medium sized organizations opt to lease data centers which are more cost effective and more secure rather than building a new data center.

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Steps for Successful Data Center Consolidation

December 14, 2012 By

                Data Center consolidation is also referred as IT consolidation is a strategy to reduce the number of servers used either by repurposing server by carrying out Virtualization or by removing legacy servers. Some of the most popular consolidation technologies used in today’s data centers are storage Virtualization; cloud computing, server Virtualization and

replacing mainframes with smaller blade servers. Data center consolidation is a common for organizations that plan to reduce the overall size of their facility to reduce overall IT footprint and operating cost.

Challenges:

                Is your data center is suffering from a high level of power consumption, server sprawl and redundant licenses or if you are facing any of the following challenges?

  • High capital costs
  • Higher operating costs
  • Long response time to service request
  • Increased downtime
  • Decreased reliability

Then it’s time to consolidate your datacenter.

Solution:

                Consolidation of data centers or servers may be one of the solutions to reduce operating cost and capital funds while improving service. Following are the outcomes of successful consolidation of data centers.

  • Reduce operating and hardware cost by 50%
  • Creates provision for new servers which are 70% faster than older ones
  • Reduce energy consumption and reduces energy bill up-to 80%
  • Reliable during disaster recovery
  • Less downtime

 

Following are few simple and best steps to perform data center consolidation:

Building a suitable Data Center Consolidation Strategy

                Data center consolidation team should concentrate on delivering true value to the business which aims to reduce overall operational cost and increases efficiency of the facility.  Planning consolidation strategy with the application front of mind operational cost can be reduced significantly.

Build a business case for Consolidation:

                While choosing a business case have a brief idea about the category in which your data center operates and plan accordingly. Carefully examine the staff levels and mark them in their levels, this saves your staffing expenses.  Also have a brief idea about projected growth and candidates for consolidation.

Understand what you have:

                Knowing the software and hardware configurations helps in creating better understanding between management and vendors.

Plan Return on Investment

Getting step 1 wrong will directly affect the company’s capital income and its performance in the market. Compressive strategies will clearly define success of the company and also helps in

achieving a good return on investments. Timescales and expectations should be set at the very beginning of the planning phase.

Identify Best Candidates for Consolidation:

                When you have a clear idea about what you have in your data center, then you can identify best elements to consolidate and yield better result. So it’s better to select best consolidation candidates who can perform the task efficiently.

Implementing the Strategy

                After the successful planning of the consolidation strategy it’s time to implement. Consolidation team should ensure applications are delivered exactly as intended at the expected time irrespective of the challenges faced such as network failures, traffic congestions and security threats.

Evaluate Whether Consolidation is Moving in Right Direction

                After you have performed consolidation make sure it’s moving in the right direction as planned and analyze the delay and reason for delay.

                Have a regular maintenance check after successfully completing the consolidation strategy.

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The Best Data Center Cooling Accessories

December 12, 2012 By

               Data centers will invest large capital to build efficient cooling systems. The demand for efficient cooling system has heated up and data center managers are thinking to implement alternate ways to increase efficiency at a relatively low cost. Following are some of the accessories which yield huge efficiency.

High Perforation Floor Tiles:

                This accessory is designed to deliver cool air from AC units to the floor system. In past floor tiles were considered as a commodity item. Nowadays data centers are forced to include higher racks at small places to increase the number of customers. To increase efficiency floor system’s weight capacity has to be maintained and ensure sufficient air flow. Through a combination of experience and innovation in accessories, our solutions can meet the demands of data center managers. These solutions can be implemented on both new and existing flooring projects.

                Cooling specialists will analyze the floor system and determine which tiles either solid or perforated will be suitable for your existing floor set up.

Triad ICE Airflow Tile:

                This tile is designed to provide optimal cooling capacity. This panel is available in 1500, 3000, 4000lbs concrete load capacity. This panel can either be used vertically or horizontally. ICE Airflow Tiles are integrated with dual handles which are safe to place without danger of trapping fingers.

Features of ICE Airflow Tile:

  • Includes optional damper kit
  • Integrated with lift-lock handle
  • Compatible with hollow steel, cement fills woodcore and aluminum
  • No special hardware is required

Ceiling Grid Vent System:

                Ceiling grid vent system is designed to pass air from the equipment to closets. Ceiling grid vent system is included with nine professional grade fans. These fans are automated by two independent temperature controllers. Fans are automated to run when necessary, which saves energy and increase the life of the system.  The fan speed can be adjusted to reduce the noise. Fans can be implemented with more advanced temperature control system which can automatically vary the fan speed or change on offset points.

               

Features of Ceiling grid vent system:

  • Includes 9 top quality fans
  • Aluminum finish
  • Attractive white enamel finishing
  • Temperature range: 14 to 160 deg F

Cool Shield Plenum:

                These are the barrier to block or return air to maximize cooling efficiency. Plenum easily attaches to the structure and can be bent to any angle and can be easily cut to any size.

                Features of cool shield plenum:

  • Flexible material
  • Maximizes efficiency by reducing cooling footprints
  • Material can be easily cut and resealed
  • Increases under floor pressure

HotSpotr Floor Fan:

                HotSpotr is an improved airflow product which channels chilled data center air to precisely where it is needed and also revert back the heated air to computer room air conditioners. HotSpotr is the best solution to overcome hot spots without any downtime. HotSpotr is bit less expensive and can be controlled by operators. Under floor pipes, cable trays, cabling etc. might reduce the overall efficiency of the system due to low static pressure and reduces air flow.

                Hope these tools will help data center managers to get clear idea about improving efficiency of the cooling systems.

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Data Center Monitoring Solutions

December 11, 2012 By

                Data centers usually maintain big data and are mainly associated with servers. Challenges associated with data center are ever increasing with their power, complexity and cooling requirements. Servers. Many companies have made an effort in developing tools and techniques which were working in the past but which might not meet today’s expectations. Following are the top challenges faced by any data center:

  • Managing the number of servers with limited resources
  • Efficiently utilize and manage resources
  • Gaining service level into the infrastructure
  • Monitoring heterogeneous environments
  • Monitoring servers in virtual environments

Following are some of the solutions which might help in tackling above mentioned challenges:

Data centers should implement monitoring systems like Green Works Monitoring Software:

                Green work is one of the comprehensive data center monitoring systems specially made for optimizing cooling and power efficiency.  This application gathers information from UPS, power panels, ATS, chillers and other environmental sensors. Collected information will be then mapped onto a 3D floor. This 3D visualization allows data center managers to have a quick view of energy usage, cooling performance and room conditions. Using this software threshold level can be set-up to provide SNMP and visual alerts.

                Features of Green Works Monitoring Software are:

  • Tracks energy consumption and provides a clear idea of how and where power is utilized
  • Can monitor energy consumption from a different time
  • Capable of identifying oversized and energy capacity to enable managers to realize where improvements can be implemented to reduce consumption.
  • Quickly generates an energy efficiency report to analyze utilization.
  • Capable of generating real time alerts when any device operates out of predefined threshold levels.
  • Easily accessible real time device status
  • Easy and simple to install
  • 30% less costly than other major data center monitoring software
  • Multiple vendor devices can be interfaced in one system.

Data Centers should implement Power Meters:

                Power monitoring system will provide reporting, data and other necessary critical information any data centers. Many servers including blade servers feature multiple power supply. These systems need to be load balanced and installed with the circuit monitoring system.

Following are some of the power meters tools which can be implemented in Data Centers:

  • Wireless Energy Meters

Gather power data from devices without network connectivity

Saves time and reduces cost linked to wired busses

Open data architecture

  • Branch Circuit Monitoring system

A single system can monitor up-to 168 circuits

Can be networked to monitor up-to 2688 circuits

  • Sentinel UPS battery monitoring system

Sentinel system measures temperature, voltage and impedance

Graphical Status report

Real Time Dashboard

Data centers should include Environmental Sensor:

                Preventing downtime and managing energy costs are the most critical issues faced by data center managers. Monitoring data center environmental condition inside the servers will enable managers to know its temperature and desired range of operations. Rack Monitoring systems have the ability to detect system failures before it causes any potential damage. This tool is also a valuable tool to gauge the efficiency of the fan systems, water coolers and aisle contaminant.

                Following are some of the

most impressive tools used to monitor environmental conditions:

  • Wireless Environmental Monitoring

Fluid sensor tags for real-time leakage and fluid detection

Air pressure for monitoring under floor pressure

Includes PDU tags for real-time power utilization monitor

  • MiniGoose XP II

Internal temperature sensor

Enabled with HTTP, SMTP, SNMP, Telnet

No master control needed

  • WeatherGoose II

Includes internal sensors for air flow, Sound, Temperature, Humidity and light

Rack or Bracket mounting

Includes 3 analog and 5 digital ports

All these tools will enable you to take action before any serious damage occurs in data centers.

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Tips for securing your Big Data

December 10, 2012 By

               In IT industry Big Data is a collection of large data sets which are hard to manage on hand base management tools. Some of the challenges faced in managing big data are storage, curation, capture, analysis, visualization and search. Big data are difficult to manage using desktop packages, instead massive software running on several tens or thousands of servers. Demand for maintaining big data has increased especially in the field of telecommunication and IT. Some of the big data maintaining giants are IBM, HP, SAP, Oracle Corporation and Microsoft. Following are some of the tips which I came across for securing big data.

Plan about Securing Data before Starting Big Data Project

                Technicians should involve in protecting big data before installing or feeding data. Organizations need to find alternative ways to secure big data. Organizations should have serious discussions about data security and other related security issues.

Have A Clear Idea About What Data May Get Stored:

                Data incorporated into Hadoop for storing and running are subjected to specific security measures. Every organization faces huge risk or implementing security for data transfer and usage. So companies need to have a look at revenue loss and risk associated with leakage.

Centralize your account:

                Data are organized so vividly, sometimes data reside in diverse organizations. To ensure consistency in data access and for better policy enforcement, centralize the data account.

Separate Encrypted Data and Encryption Keys:

                Maintaining same server for storing both encrypted data and encryption keys is like locking the door and leaving the keys in lock socket. Key management system will allow users to store encryption keys and encrypted data separately.

Use Encryption for Both Data in Motion and At Rest:

                If companies plan to implement SSL encryption, this can protect data as it moves from applications and nodes. Encryption of data will protect malicious administrators or users to gain access to data. This is one of the cost effective ways to solve several data security threats.

Use Secure Automation:

                If you are dealing with the multiple node environments, this might hamper deployment consistency. So it’s better to use automation tools which help you to cheap cialis online configure the application, update the stack, certificates, patching and platform.

Use Kerberos Network Authentication Protocol:

                This is one of the effective methods for keeping rouge nodes and application of your cluster. This protocol can help to protect web console access. Kerberos is a painful method to set-up and re-validate new nodes and applications.

Add Log Files To your Cluster:

                Many companies started big data to maintain log files, why not to include log files on-to your clusters? Adding log files will provide you a place to look when you think you have been hacked or when something fails.

Ensure Secure Connectivity Between Nodes and Between Nodes and Applications:

                One of the best methods to ensure secure connectivity is by implementing SSL-TLS. If an organization implements an average built network then it is recommended to integrate the system with stack application.

                Do you agree to these steps, will these steps will help to secure big data in an organizational level.

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Data Center Operations and Its Biggest Mistakes

December 6, 2012 By

Data Center is a facility furnished with computer system and associated components, such as storage and telecommunication systems. Data centers are drawing attention globally with its unique features li

ke reliability, space for large data, redundancy and temperature control. Data centers generally include data communication connection, power supply backups, security devices, fire suppression and air conditioners. Massive data centers consume electricity as a small town and contribute a significant amount of air pollution in the form of diesel exhaust. Boom of data centers rose during the dot – com bubble. Similarly for years massive data centers are mesmerized to a lot of operational errors, mainly due to human blooper.

To yield better efficiency data centers companies have to ensure operational programs are fully functional and successful. Data centers have to be very watchful to avoid traps. Here are some of the common mistakes happen in data centers:

Relying Too Much on Data Center Design:

We can observe companies investing a lot of money on redundant design of the facility rather than concentrating on their operations. This is one of the best examples for human lackadaisical. Many data centers concentrate more on appointing specialist to design office building maintenance and no experts in managing critical operational facilities.

Disregarding Operation Team in Facility Design:

This is the first step that an organization needs to implement to balance the company’s capital expenditure. This step helps an organization to control and understand company’s operational expenditure. This step also includes determining performance characteristics and design criteria.

Failure in Addressing the Correct Number of Staffs:

Many Hosting companies owning data centers underestimate the need of appropriate staffing. Insufficient staffing can result in havoc at emergency situations. So it’s better to create schedule and deploy proper number of resources.

Failure in Training and Developing Right Talent

Once an organization hires a fresher or a qualified person, it’s important to provide training and support. Generating a positive

environment significantly improves the retention rates of the person. Companies need to have step by step training programs in order to expertise the work assigned to them.

Failing to Test Skills Consistently:

Organizations need to perform tests technicians consistently which might help in building right responses at the right time. Training alone cannot gain complete skills, regular test and assessments will improve overall reaction time during emergency situations.

Failure in Implementing Appropriate Procedures and Processes:

Companies have to look at the processes and procedures are moving on right schedule and yielding good results. Companies need to have a regular update on formal set of procedures and processes which return maximum efficiency. Some of the procedures include EOP (Emergency Operational Procedure), Emergency response, Standard Operational Procedure, vendor management and Method of procedure.

Failure in Using Software Management Tool:

Most of the data center organizations neglect to install software management tools to minimize the operational cost. This seems cost effective. When a company starts catering more number of customers, management team might be at risk because of poor document management.

Failure in Implementing Quality Systems:

Data center need to implement efficient, cost effective and reliable hardware. One of the best ways to ensure proper quality of the systems is by including a Quality Assurance team.

These are the main steps need to be maintained to gain maximum efficiency of the facility.

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