Categories: Technology

Guidelines For Optimal Data Center Planning

It is difficult to comprehend the sudden growth in data. Over 2.5 quintillion bytes of data are generated every single day. Organizations are struggling to come up with the resources to meet their evolving big data needs, as the proliferation of data accelerates.

Companies that rely on big data technology need versatile data centers. The department of energy estimates that there are already approximately 3 million data centers in the United States. This figure is going to continue to grow every year.

Data centers serve very important purposes for countless businesses. Unfortunately, some organizations struggle to manage their data centers effectively. They could avoid many of these issues by planning more carefully. Here are some important guidelines to ensure data center solutions are properly designed.

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Don’t Overlook The Importance Of Cooling

Data centers produce a tremendous amount of energy. According to estimates from APC, a typical data center might produce a thermal output that is equivalent to over 50% of the IT load. This problem is probably more common than you might think. In 2017, British Airways reported that its IT system failed for customers and employees all over the world.

The CEO of British Airways tried to blame the problem on an unexpected power surge. However, there was no evidence of any power problems in the region that could support his claim. Ample evidence suggests the problem arose from the data center overheating. Similarly, Wikipedia had to be taken offline for one day in 2010 due to a cooling problem at its data center.

You need to realize that cooling is essential for any data center. Your cooling units will be costly, so it is important to invest in the right ones at the beginning. They need to be strong enough to handle your future cooling needs, rather than the cooling needs you have with your existing data capacity.

Don’t Ignore The Need For Your Support Team

It is easy to get bogged down in the technical metrics to determine the success of your data center. However, you are going to need to plan for the inevitable. Your data center is going to have technical complications that need to be dressed.

You need to make sure that there is sufficient space to host your support team. Ideally, your support team office should be based within 100 feet of the exterior of your data center. They can even have a virtual data room in place.

Make Sure That Sufficient Physical Security Is In Place

Data centers are prime targets for hackers. There were 5,183 security breaches in 2019. The number of security breach is increased 33.3% over the previous year and the number of data records that were exposed increased by 112%. This creates a challenge for those trying to keep data private.

These statistics should frighten any data center manager. However, they should not blind them to other security risks. Data centers could be targeted by traditional criminals, as well as hackers. It is important to make sure they have enough physical security in place. This is going to be critical to keep all existing data safe and secure.

Plan For Scalability

You need to constantly consider the growth trajectory of your organization. Your data needs are going to increase exponentially over time. This means that your physical storage infrastructure is going to increase. You need to plan accordingly. There should be enough space in your facility to accommodate additional servers to meet your growth needs.

Come Up With Hardware Specifications For Future Hardware Refresh Cycles

The average data refresh cycle is between three and five years. However, many experts warned that this is not nearly frequent enough. You need to have proper documentation in place to make sure that you can complete more frequent data center refreshes. The most important thing is to outline your current hardware specifications.

You should also track your performance statistics very carefully. This information is going to be very important for any organization that needs to upgrade its data centers. They should make sure that it is revised to account for future changes to hardware.