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Data Center Checklist for Infrastructure Best Practices
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Expectations of data centers are focused on the five ‘pillars’
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of availability, cost-effectiveness, flexibility, manageability, and security
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These pillars let us make a data center checklist of best practices for the DC infrastructure
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Availability
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Data centers need to be organized to prevent such problems or at least to detect them at the earliest possible moment, including:
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• Resilient data center design with fire barriers and robust building architecture
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• Multiple connections to power providers, preferably entering the data center at different points
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• Uninterruptible power supply with battery backup and generators in case of power cuts
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• Redundant servers and storage with failover provisions at hardware and software levels
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• Multiple high-speed network links entering and exiting at different points
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• Sufficient air conditioning for all of the equipment being operated in the data center
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• Smoke, fire, humidity and flood detection, including underneath data center raised floors
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Cost-Effectiveness
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Data center operations need to be high-quality, yet also be efficient and avoid unnecessarily high levels of expenditure
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• Tiered data storage according to needs for every day, occasional, or archival use
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• Virtualization to maximize physical server productivity via virtual machines (VMs)
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• Automation of systems administration routines
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• Power and cooling analysis to prevent excessively hot or cold spots from forming
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• Ergonomic shipping and installation facilities, including weather-proof receiving docks
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• Proximity to access routes and fuel storage, while avoiding hazards like airports and oil refineries
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Flexibility
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Even if data center buildings seldom scale physically,
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their internal organization must facilitate scaling in power and storage capacity with new systems,
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as well as handling peak user demands
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• Ability of the data center to accommodate new technology with different power and cooling needs
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• Ease of switching to new operational procedures or ways to meet new safety requirements
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• Modularity in floor layout, electrical and mechanical design to adapt to market requirements
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• Management of requests for very popular information via overflow servers
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Manageability
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‘Lights-out’ operations may be possible, but at the very least,
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data center teams and customers must be kept appraised of performance and possible problems via:
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• Service level agreements with customers, including service response time and escalation paths
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• Overall and specific (per customer for multi-customer DCs) monitoring of service levels
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• Speedy registration and resolution of support requests, trouble tickets, and alarms
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• Coordinated computing equipment refresh process with roadmap for customers
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• Standards compliance and certification now and into the future (e.g. PCI, TIA-942, SAS 70)
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Security
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Both in terms of staff and site safety, and customer data confidentiality,
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security looms large in the data center checklist for infrastructure best practices including:
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• Full compliance with safety regulations including fire exits
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• Physical security with protection of power and networking links, and cable vaults
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• Video surveillance and motion detectors, badges, ‘mantrap’ entrances, data center guards
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• Data encryption, SSL certificates, firewalls and also virtual firewalls (for VMs)
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• Locked cages with ceilings for customer systems, locked cabinets as an option
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• Intrusion detection and prevention systems, behavioral analysis, and alerts to staff
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• Protected and tested data backup and disaster recovery procedures
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• Reliable and complete data destruction procedures (old hard drives, contract terminations)
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This data center checklist is naturally a general one
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Do you have an additional best practice for your own data center?
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Tell us about it in the Comments section below
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