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Datacentre Peer Review
by John Herbert | Director
There are several options to procure your datacentre facility, there are three primary routes namely self-built, hotel, or partnership. Within each option they are variations on a theme, but these represent the majority of tried and tested options.
With the increasing complexities of modern datacentre facilities one tool to assist making informed judgements is the design stage Peer Review, is an important and often overlooked validation of the design before construction commences.
Designing a datacentre to operate at day one overlooks the
real life operational problems datacentre managers face for the
lifetime of the facility.
A Peer Review is a technical analysis of the design drawings and
specifications conducted to identify potential deficiencies, at the
design stage or bidding stage, where error on paper are simple to
rectify correct.
Standards and Certification
Although classification systems do exist, presently there is
no universally accepted, definitive standard for datacentre operation.
The Uptime Institute in USA (www.uptime.org)
created the Tier I-IV
classification but that system focuses solely on the hardware, not more
practical operational issues.
Today it is widely recognised, and whilst many in the
industry argue it is incomplete at least provides a common language for
datacentre infrastructure, and that is a positive step forward.
TAI 942 follows a similar if not identical format as that of the Uptime Institute.
Trust but Validate
It is timely to mention a simple philosophy - trust
but validate. When procuring a datacentre facility, ask for a
copy of an independent validation report, just because it states Tier
III in the owners literature does not mean it is reality Tier III
facility.
Facilities
Essentially the critical issue for management is business continuity, and from that stems the reliance on hardware, software and the facility infrastructure. But one word in any context, causes headaches and sleepless nights - downtime.
Whichever
procurement method is chosen, if the facility
E&M infrastructure fails, no matter the reason, the cost both
financially and business wise are difficult to accept.
There are several opinions on the real cost of downtime, and
it would varies by sector to sector, but often US$ 1 million per hour
for a financial institution is cited. Perhaps more depending on which
way the market is moving at the time. Notwithstanding the exact value
of the loss, and the cost of additional resources to handle an
incident, and the post-mortem - downtime is never desirable or cheap.
One method many organisations chose to mitigate the risk - an infrastructure audit.
Image driving your car year in, year out, and expressing surprise when it breaks down, often at an very inconvenient time. For vehicles there is a mandatory annual inspection, yet the datacentre infrastructure often escapes attention until it is too late, downtime hits operations hard.
A datacentre project is not like other projects, they evolve
over time with the equipment regularly refreshed, and a few years after
opening bears will resemblance to the original.
New technology including blade servers and the like conspire to defeat the existing infrastructure pressing increasing loads in an environment that was perhaps designed many years before.
So how can IT managers avoid downtime? an annual
health check or audit
is essential to manage the risk. After a failure it is too late, and
the first question arises when was checkup.
Risk
An audit helps you manage the risk, a fresh pair of eyes can point out simple fixes to potential downtime.
Kelcroft datacentre solutions - avoid datacentre downtime
The Uptime Institute (USA), creators of the datacentre Tier I-IV classification recommend an annual infrastructure audit.
Further Information
If you need any further information regarding Kelcroft's datacentre consultancy solutions, including data centre, planning, design, peer review, annual auditing, due diligence and thermal analysis contact the experts, call John Herbert at our Hong Kong office, the telephone number is (852) 2335 9830, the fax number is (852) 2335 9862, or simply email us.