Four Critical Mistakes To Avoid When Planning for Your Data Center

With business enterprises relying heavily on data centers for business critical applications, it is evident that data center planning is one area where there is little room for errors. Here are some of the top blunders people make when planning for their data centers.

Keeping the operations team out of the design department

In the end, it is your operations team that is going to handle the data center, and hence their inputs should be considered while designing the facilities. Their ease of access to maintenance tools as well as hardware resources should be a primary focus.

Ignoring strengths in the team that mans the data center

Data center staffing requirements should be based on the type of business processes involving the data center, and not based on the size of the data center facility. Underestimating the required number increases the burden on employees, while employing too many people but with lesser technical expertise may prove disastrous at the time of critical events such as disaster recovery.

Lack of training for staff

Once you have hired expert technical talent, your job of recruiting may be over, but the staff may not be educated to face the specific technical challenges of great magnitude. They need to be trained extensively to help them improve their productivity and speed of operation. This is critical in determining how effectively your data center copes with failures and other disasters.

Failure to document operational activities

Every critical activity and its outcome must be documented for further analysis. This is vital in estimating future productivity figures, estimating costs, and calculating risks.

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.