A company’s data center often serves as the heart of the organization. It’s the center of everything and, for better or worse, has a direct impact on just about every area of the business. If you aren’t paying attention to both the big picture issues and finer details of your data center, then you probably aren’t maximizing its value.
5 Tips to Help You Manage Your Data Center
In a business world where data is king, your organization can’t afford to view its data center as an afterthought. Instead, you need to develop a proactive strategy that helps you get the most return on your investment. Here are some tips you should find helpful:
1. Reduce Downtime
One of the most important components of any data center is their Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS). The UPS is tasked with maintaining uptime in a data center should there ever be a power interruption, Titan Power explains. It literally provides an uninterruptible power supply to mission-critical infrastructure within a data center. With proper maintenance, a UPS system can save a data center from downtime that is not only incredibly costly but frustrating and very problematic.
If you want to reduce downtime “ which is an absolute must in today’s business world “ you need to spend some time thinking about your UPS system and how it can be flawlessly integrated into your IT infrastructure.
2. Increase Energy Efficiency
From a more practical standpoint, you should be focused on energy efficiency, which is much easier said than done. According to a report from the Department of Energy’s Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratory, data centers are responsible for an astounding 2 percent of all U.S. energy consumption.
Some of the steps you can take are to install variable-frequency drives (VFD’s), employ cold/not aisle containment, invest more heavily in virtualization technology, and think about rack blanking panels to eliminate the gaps in server racks and create better-contained server rack environments.
3. Be Strategic With Physical Location
While most organizations spend time thinking about the placement of server racks and wires within the confines of the data center, few spend much time considering the physical location of the data center.
There is a multitude of factors to think about, including proximity to people, natural climate control, security risk factors, and natural disasters (risk of blizzards, hurricanes, earthquakes, etc.). While there are tradeoffs with any location, you must spend some time contemplating this issue.
4. Invest in Preventative Maintenance
To the detriment of the organization, most IT leaders take a reactive approach to maintenance. However, research and common sense both show that preventative maintenance is the way to go.
As IT expert Jeff O’Brien points out, Preventative maintenance ensures maximum reliability by taking precautionary and proactive steps to reduce unscheduled equipment downtime and other avoidable failures.
A dollar spent preventing an issue will save you five dollars down the road. Be willing to spend up front to yield cost-savings on the backside. It’s the smart thing to do.
5. Have a Cabling Strategy
You’ll save yourself a lot of frustration and wasted time by taking cabling seriously. No matter how much of a hurry you’re in, there’s no excuse for being sloppy with how you cable your data center. In addition to clearly labeling cables, make sure you are also accurate with how you cut the cables. As any carpenter will tell you, measure twice and cut once.
It’s an adage, but an important one, says Jack Wallen of TechRepublic. Not only do you create a tangled mess if you don’t carefully measure your cables, but you also create a lot of expensive waste. You may think that two feet of wasted cable doesn’t amount to much, but those wasted feet add up.
Give Your Data Center the Attention It Deserves
The interesting thing about data centers is that they influence so many different aspects of the businesses they serve. Not only do they collect and store data, but they also impact network uptime, energy consumption, organizational security, finances, and everything in between. If you want to give your business a strong foundation upon which it can build, the data center is the place to start.
