the Data Center

Value of Your Data Center

 Data Centers are specialized environments
that safeguard your company's most
valuable equipment and intellectual
property.
 Data Centers house the devices that do the

following:
◦ Process your business transactions
◦ Host your website
◦ Process and store your intellectual property
◦ Maintain your financial records
◦ Route your e-mails
Data Center === Brain of your
company
 Your business' ability to:
◦ Perceive the world (data connectivity)
◦ Communicate (e-mail)
◦ Remember information (data storage)
◦ Have new ideas (research and development)
 How to:
◦ Secure the brain
◦ Help it function efficiently
◦ Develop its full potential for your business
What do you need to know?
 Physical design and construction of a Data
Center
 How to customize the environment to meet

your company's needs

 How to organize and manage your Data

Center effectively so downtime is

minimized, troubleshooting is easier, and
the room's infrastructure is fully used
 So, how much is acceptable to spend on the
construction of your Data Center? That
depends. To determine the answer, you
need to know the value of what your Data
Center is protecting.
Shall I simply outsource?
 What is outsource?
◦ Rent server environment space from an outside company.
 Colocation facility
◦ Type of data center where equipment space and bandwidth
are available for rental to retail customers. Colocation
facilities provide space, power, cooling, and physical security
for the server, storage, and networking equipment of other
firms—and connect them to a variety of telecommunications
and network service providers. (from wikipedia)
 How much does it cost?
◦ Costs for an outsourced Data Center are usually dictated by
the amount of floor and rack space your servers occupy,
how much power they draw, and what level of connectivity
and staff support they require.
Things to consider:
 Ownership
 Responsibility
 Access
 Up-front costs
Why not to outsource?
 Server environment contains my company's
most valuable items and handles our
business critical functions so you want your
own employees to be its caretakers.
 No one can know your company's server
environment needs like you own people who
are dedicated to supporting it,
 No matter how good an outside vendor is, it
does not have a personal stake in making
sure that your Data Center runs correctly the
way that your and your coworkers do.
Outsource if:
 You have a short-term need for a server
environment, perhaps until a permanent
Data Center is constructed
 You want a standby facility ready to take

over for a primary Data Center in the event

of a catastrophic event.
You still want to outsource!
 Then do not drop the course.
 You need to:
 Know what types of infrastructure you want

the facility to have to support your servers

 Foresee what challenges even your rented

space might face.

 Be prepared for the day when you may

want to build your own Data Center.

Defining Requirements and
Roles
 You need to identify the requirements of
your data center
 Also, you need to identify the roles and

relationship between different employees.

Purpose of building data center
 Why is your company building this Data
Center?
 What needs must it meet?
 What specific functions does it need to

perform, and perform well, to be considered

a success?
 What level of availability does your business

require?
Roles and relationship
 Delineate which departments and people
are responsible for what tasks
 Who designs the Data Center's electrical

infrastructure, for example?

◦ An IT person who manages the room and knows
about the incoming server equipment?
◦ A facilities person experienced with electrical
systems?
◦ An outside architect knowledgeable about
regional building codes?
Understanding Client
Needs
 Talk to the people who work in the room(your
client), and find out the following:
◦ What servers they want it to support
◦ How much connectivity those devices need
◦ What their power requirements are
◦ Whether clients see trends among the equipment they
are ordering most commonly
 Focus on current needs along with future needs.
 Clients knows well their current needs.
 Clients may do not have any idea about future
needs.
Cross-Functional Support
 Responsibility for a company's Data Center is
typically shared among multiple departments and
personnel.
 Example:
 Security manager typically governs physical
access into the Data Center.
 IT manager coordinates where servers are
physically deployed.
 Each one has different point of view with regards
to security access.
 Solution: Foster communication and seek
compromise
Architecting a Productive Data
Center
 In order to have well designed data center
you need to follow five essential design
strategy:
 Make It Robust
 Make It Modular
 Make It Flexible
 Standardize
 Promote Good Habits
Make It Robust
 Above all, your Data Center has to be reliable. Its overarching
reason for existence is safeguarding your company's most critical
equipment and applications. Regardless of what catastrophes
happen you want your Data Center up and running so your
business continues to operate.
 Data Center infrastructure must have depth: standby power
supplies to take over when commercial electricity fails, and
redundant network stations to handle the communication needs if
a networking device malfunctions.
 The infrastructure must be configured so there is no single
component or feature that makes it vulnerable. It does little good
to have multiple standby power systems if they are all wired
through a single circuit, or to have redundant data connections if
their cable runs all enter the building at one location.
 In both examples, a malfunction at a single point can bring the
entire Data Center offline.
Make It Modular
 Your Data Center must not only have a depth of infrastructure,
it must also have breadth. You want sufficient power, data, and
cooling throughout the room so that incoming servers can be
deployed according to a logical master plan, not at the mercy
of wherever there happens to be enough electrical outlets or
data ports to support them.
 To achieve this uniform infrastructure, design the room in
interchangeable segments. Stock server cabinet locations with
identical infrastructure and then arrange those locations in
identical rows. Modularity keeps your Data Center
infrastructure simple and scalable. It also provides redundancy,
on a smaller scale, as the standby systems mentioned
previously. If a component fails in one section of the Data
Center, users can simply plug in to the same infrastructure in
another area and immediately be operational again.
Make It Flexible
 It is safe to assume that routers, switches, servers, and
data storage devices will advance and change in the
coming years. They may become smaller or bigger.
 Data Centers are not static, so their infrastructure
should not be either. Design for flexibility. Build
infrastructure systems using components that are
easily changed or moved.
 Inflexible infrastructure invariably leads to more
expense down the road.
 Part of a Data Center's flexibility also comes from
whether it has enough of a particular type of
infrastructure to handle an increased need in the future.
Standardize
 Make the Data Center a consistent environment. This provides
stability for the servers and networking equipment it houses,
and increases its usability.
 When building a new facility, it might be tempting to try
something different, to experiment with an alternate design
philosophy or implement new technology. If there are new
solutions that truly provide quantifiable benefits, then by all
means use them. Do not tinker with the design just to tinker,
though.
 Once you find a design model or infrastructure component
that provides the functions and features you are looking for,
make it your standard. Avoid variety for variety's sake. The
more complex the environment, the greater the chance that
someone will misunderstand the infrastructure and make a
mistake, most likely in an emergency.
Promote Good Habits
 Data Center should be engineered to
encourage desirable behavior. Incorporating
the right conveniences into the Data Center
and eliminating the wrong ones definitely
make the space easier to manage.
 Data Center users are busy people. They

are looking for the fastest solution to their

problems.
Examples of Good Habits
 Construct a nearby Build Room where system
administrators can unbox servers to keep the Data
Center free of boxes and pallets
 Make primary Data Center aisles larger than those
between server rows, creating an obvious path for
users to follow when rolling refrigerator-sized servers
through the room for deployment.
 Install wall-mounted telephones with long receiver
cords throughout the Data Center if you are concerned
about interference from cellular phones and want to
reduce their usage.
 Provide pre-tested patch cords to promote
standardized cabling practices.
Data Center Ergonomics
 Make things accessible— This means putting items close by that Data
Center users need to perform their job. It also means designing work
areas, say within an electrical panel or where data cabling terminates,
to be free of clutter.
 Choose simple over complex— The more straightforward a Data
Center's details are, the less chance there is for someone to make a
mistake and perhaps cause an outage. Following this principle can
influence how you arrange server equipment and major infrastructure
in the room.
 Remove mystery— If there is a chance someone might not understand
an element of a Data Center, add some form of written instructions—
signage, labeling, or even maps.
 Consider human nature— People typically follow the path of least
resistance. As suggested in the preceding section about making the
Data Center intuitive, take this into account when designing the room.
If you want someone to use a particular type and length patch cord, for
example, you should provide them in the Data Center.
Data Center Components
(Preview)
 Basic Data Center facility systems:
◦ Physical space
◦ Raised flooring
◦ In-room electrical
◦ Standby power
◦ Data cabling
◦ Cooling
◦ Fire suppression
Data Center Components
 Physical Space
◦ Physical space refers to the footprint that Data Center-related items occupy. This generally
applies to the overall area of the Data Center and its associated spaces, such as electrical
rooms or storage areas. On a smaller scale this might refer to key dimensions within the Data
Center, such as the external measurements of a server cabinet or aisle clearances.
 Raised Flooring
◦ Raised flooring is an elevated grid system that is frequently installed in large Data Centers.
Cooled air, electrical whips, and data cabling are routed through the space under the raised
floor, promoting better air flow and enabling easier management of power and cable runs.
Water pipes, fire suppressant cylinders, moisture detectors, and smoke detectors may be
located here as well.
◦ Raised flooring can vary in height from a few inches to several feet, or a few centimeters to
several meters. In extreme cases they are as tall as the story of a building, enabling workers to
walk upright under the plenum. Regardless of their height, the floors are typically composed of
standard 2 foot (60 centimeter) square floor tiles. The tiles can vary in weight, strength, and
finish depending upon their use. Tiles featuring either small perforations or large cut-out
sections are placed in key locations to enable pass-through of air and cabling between the
areas above and below the floor.
 In-Room Electrical
◦ In-room electrical refers to all power-related facilities within the Data Center. This normally
includes electrical panels, conduits, and several types of receptacles. Power to this system
usually comes from an outside commercial power source, namely your local utility company,
and is likely conditioned at the company site. Voltage varies from one country to another.
Data Center Components. Cont.
 Standby Power
◦ Standby power includes all backup power systems responsible for support of the Data Center's
electrical load in the event that normal utility power fails for any reason. This system traditionally
includes large batteries, known as an uninterruptible power source or uninterruptible power supply, and
one or more generators.
 Cabling
◦ The cabling system is all structured cabling within the Data Center. Copper and fiber cabling are the
typical media and are terminated via several types of connectors. Common components include fiber
housings, patch panels, multimedia boxes, and data faceplates. Cabinets, raceways, and other items
used to route structured cabling are also considered part of the cabling system. Users plug servers in to
the Data Center's structured cabling system with pre-terminated patch cords.
 Cooling
◦ The cooling system refers to the chillers and air handlers used to regulate ambient temperature and
control humidity within the Data Center. This system might incorporate the air conditioning system
used to cool regular office space within the same building, known as house air, or might be
independent of it. Individual server cabinets can also possess their own cooling measures, such as fans
or water-cooling.
 Fire Suppression
◦ Fire suppression includes all devices associated with detecting or extinguishing a fire in the Data
Center. The most obvious components are water-based sprinklers, gaseous fire suppression systems,
and hand-held fire extinguishers. Others can include devices that detect smoke or measure air quality.
 Other Infrastructure Components
◦ There are also some infrastructure items that do not strictly fall under the prior categories but are
commonly found in server environments. These include leak detection devices, seismic mitigation, and
physical security controls such as card readers and security cameras.
Data Center Design
Criteria
 How many layers of infrastructure should your
Data Center possess?
 Will it be the only server environment for your
company or one of several?
 Will the room house production servers and be
a business-critical site or contain a minimum of
equipment for disaster recovery purposes and
serve as a failover location?
 How long is its initial construction expected to
meet your company's needs?
 What is it all going to cost?
Data Center Design
Criteria
 Availability
 Infrastructure Tiers
 One Room or Several?
 Life Span
 Budget Decisions
Data Center Design
Criteria
 Availability:
 The degree to which Data Center devices

function continuously is known as the

room's availability or its uptime.
 Availability is represented as a percentage

of time. How many days, hours, and

minutes is the Data Center's electrical
infrastructure operational and supplying
power over a given time period
Data Center Design
Criteria
 Infrastructure Tiers
 The higher the availability you want your Data Center to
achieve, the more layers of infrastructure it must have.
 N capacity is the amount of infrastructure required to support
all servers or networking devices in the Data Center, assuming
that the space is filled to maximum capacity and all devices
are functioning.
 N most commonly used when discussing standby power,
cooling, and the room's network.
 N+1 infrastructure can support the Data Center at full server
capacity and includes an additional component
 Alternately called a 2N or system-plus-system design, it
involves fully doubling the required number of infrastructure
components
 Even higher tiers exist or can be created: 3N, 4N, and so on.
Data Center Design
Criteria
 One Room or Several?
 One large Data Center is simpler to manage

than several smaller ones.

 Having only one server environment puts all

of your eggs in one basket.

 Life Span
 How long it is expected to support your

company's needs without having to be

expanded or retrofitted, or otherwise
undergo major changes.
 The most effective strategy is to design a

Data Center with a projected life span of a

few years.
 Budget Decisions
 It is no good to spend millions of dollars on a server
environment to protect your company's assets if
that cost drives your business into bankruptcy.
 The most obvious costs for a Data Center are labor
and materials associated with its initial construction,
which, even for a room smaller than 1000 square
feet or 100 square meters, normally runs into
hundreds of thousands of dollars. This includes:
◦ Initial construction
◦ Consulting fees
◦ Real estate
◦ Ongoing operational expenses
 Budget Decisions
 It depends on the downtime cost
 The cost of a generic employee at your business and then multiply
this by the length of the outage and by how many employees are
unable to work during downtime/
◦ For example, a generic employee costs your company a total of $150,000 a
year. (Remember, this is all costs combined, not just salary.) That is about $60
an hour, assuming the employee works a traditional 40-hour work week, and
52-week calendar year. If your Data Center goes offline for two hours and stops
the work of 100 employees at that site, that is $12,000 for that single outage.
 Or by calculating the revenue:
◦ Assume that your company typically brings in $1 million a year in online
business. If the website accepts orders around the clock, then divide $1 million
by 8760, the number of hours in a year. That works out to $114 an hour, which
means that the four hours of downtime also disrupted about $500 in sales.
 Most difficult value of all to quantify comes from when a server
crashes and data is destroyed.
◦ For example, intellectual property has been destroyed.
Working with Experts
 The facilities manager— This person's specialty includes all mechanical devices within the Data
Center infrastructure, from air handlers and power distribution units to fire sprinklers and
standby generators.
 The IT manager— This person is responsible for the servers installed in the Data Center.
 The network engineer— This person designs, supports, and manages the Data Center's
network.
 The Data Center manager— This person designs, supports, and manages the Data Center's
physical architecture and oversees the layout and installation of incoming servers.
 The real estate manager or building planner— This person governs how company building space
is used. In a Data Center project.
 The project manager— This person manages the Data Center construction project as a whole,
including its budget, timelines, and supervision of outside contractors.
 The architectural firm— This outside company ensures that your Data Center design complies
with local building codes.
 The general contractor— This person oversees and acts as a single point of contact for all other
contractors on the project.
 The electrical contractor— This contractor installs, labels, and tests all of the Data Center's
electrical and standby equipment.
 The mechanical contractor— This contractor installs and tests all of the Data Center's cooling
equipment. Ducting is typically the contractor's responsibility as well.
 The cabling contractor—This contractor installs and tests all of the Data Center's structured
cabling. Its staff also installs any racks or cabinets that cabling terminates into, and labels the
room's cable runs.
Tips for a Successful Project
 Define expectations and communicate them
early and often
 Expect long lead times on infrastructure

items
 Establish deadline-based incentives for

time-sensitive projects
 Document everything
 Visit the construction site frequently