November, 2008

Prank Video: A “jackass” moment in the data center

Hee-haw! A male donkey is known as a jackass, but as our female readers are already aware, the term can sometimes apply to the human male, as well. Here are two data center workers reenacting a “Jackass” spoof. Don’t try this at home.

Community Manager

Plan Your Data Center Move (Part 2 of 2)

A successful data center relocation starts with a good plan. By placing emphasis on pre-design and planning, you can achieve an optimal solution to meet the demands of your data center move. Here are some key points to address when developing your own data center relocation strategy:

-What equipment really needs to move?

An equipment migration is the perfect time to make network and network security improvements, phase out old server and storage platforms, and undertake a virtualization project to minimize the number of servers.

-Is the new site’s support infrastructure prepared to accept the new load?

Is there enough UPS, cooling, power distribution, floor weight capacity, etc.? Is the data cabling strategy the same or will you be making changes? It’s helpful to retain a computer room design consultant to verify the load capacity and redundancy constraints of the new site. If working with a pre-existing space, the new computer room should be re-commissioned.

-Establish corporate buy-in.

Clearly communicate the timeline of the project with everyone in the company – management and employees alike.

-Identify, mark, tag, and document everything – twice!

Every piece of equipment from subfloor to ceiling – be it a cabinet, rack, power cable, power strip, patch cable, data cable, bracket, nut, or bolt – needs to be accounted for using a numbering convention that will ensure everything goes back together exactly as it came apart.

-Develop a schedule with enough time built in for contingencies.

Allow yourself a sufficient margin of error in case there’s a hold-up at some point during the process. Build extra time in at the end of the data center relocation schedule and don’t try to do too much at one time.

For more advice on data center migration, check out “Tips For Moving Your Data Center” at Processor.com.

-Pete

Plan Your Data Center Move (Part 1 of 2)

In my post “Tips for Handling Your Data Center Relocation,” I discussed some basic strategies for streamlining a data center move. Since then, I’ve received a few requests for more insight into handling the data center relocation process. In this post I’ll address whether it’s necessary to call in the pros and how to pick a data center moving company.
While in some cases the in-house team can handle the move themselves, most enterprises need a little extra help. I liken it to attempting a plumbing project on your own. The tools you need to do the job most effectively are so specialized and you rarely have them – in most situations, it would take you three times the amount of effort to do the job versus the professional. With a data center relocation project, having the right packing materials, rigging equipment, trucks, and so forth are all necessary for a job well done.
Here’s an overview of how to find and hire a company to help with the data center relocation process:

Step 1: Finding a data center moving company.
Nearly every area has a company that specializes in relocating computer equipment. They can be found in the Yellow Pages, via an online search, or by asking for referrals from colleagues. The hard part is making sure you’ve found a qualified company that specializes in data center moves. Checking references is vitally important. A general rule of thumb I’ve seen people use is “The bigger the companies they work for, the better the moving company is,” but this isn’t always the case.

Step 2: Checking qualifications.
When lost or damaged equipment can mean downtime and escalating costs, the need to choose carefully is clear. The most important thing to look for is experience. How many years has the data center relocation company been in business? What’s the combined experience of their team? Have they worked on projects of similar scale to your own?
Ask specific questions to make sure they perform these services on a regular basis. What are the company’s best practices and proven methodologies? What resources and support does the company offer? How would they coordinate all aspects of the move from start to finish?

Remember that the moving company is only one part of the integrated team for an effective relocation. Be sure to involve key stakeholders in the process, including your IT, business and facilities staff as well as third-party vendors. The project team should include:
 your internal IT and facilities staff,
 an overall project manager (internal or external),
 an IT services company to assist in the marking, tagging, un-cabling, un-racking, re-racking, and re-cabling of all IT infrastructure
 a computer room design firm to verify the power and cooling capacity on the other side.

For a more detailed guide to hiring a firm, download my white paper, “Tips for Hiring a Data Center Consultant.”

-Pete

In Focus: Server Room Security Measures

The other day I was reading a news story about hollow coins being used for espionage and it inadvertently got me thinking about server room security issues. While I’m still not 100% sure of the best way to protect your facility against Canadian spy coins, I am aware of a number of techniques for guarding against unauthorized server room access.

To reduce downtime from accidents or sabotage due to the presence of unnecessary or malicious people, it’s important to implement server room security measures that account for a wide variety of potential threats. Whether building a new facility or renovating an old one, you’ll want to begin by mapping out your server room and identifying its most vulnerable areas. These may include access points, sensitive IT equipment and critical elements of the physical infrastructure.

Controlling Access to the Server Room

Server room security begins with controlling access to your facility. Security cards, biometrics and other auditable methods are commonly used to limit who is able to gain entry into the server room, but these methods can only do so much. Security cards, keys or passwords can fall into the wrong hands, while biometrics devices are expensive and may accidentally keep out people who should have access.

If these were your only options, it would be a tradeoff between lower security with convenience and higher security with hassles. By pairing either of these methods with backups such as IP-based camera surveillance, security guards or dry contact sensors, your server room is much better protected. Rather than relying on one strategy, a combination of security measures will provide the best result, particularly if they grow more stringent as you move toward the heart of the facility. By combining methods, you increase reliability.

Reinforcing Physical Infrastructure

From the ground up, the physical infrastructure of your facility should also contribute to your server room security. It pays to incorporate architectural and construction features that discourage or thwart intrusion. For example, make sure the walls of your server room extend past the ceiling, to the roof, to eliminate potential break-in points.

Reinforcing the physical infrastructure of your facility does more than just protect mission-critical IT equipment from theft or sabotage; it also gives protection to HVAC systems, power generators and fire suppression systems – anything that, if compromised, could result in downtime.

Securing IT Equipment

In addition to network security measures, it is important to implement physical security for IT equipment. Within the server room, rack-level security is a top concern. Rack locks defend against unauthorized access to critical equipment by limiting who can touch what. Not only does this help prevent sabotage, it also reduces the number of accidents and mistakes caused by workers interacting with technology that they may not be qualified to use.

Choosing a Security Solution

Every facility has its own unique security needs. When designing a security plan for your server room, carefully weigh your options. The goal is to find an acceptable compromise between security and its expense. By combining an assessment of risk tolerance with an analysis of available technologies and access requirements, it is possible to find an affordable, effective solution that will be accepted by users.

Pete

Data Center Contest: Oh what a tangled web we weave

We’re gathering stories and photos for a cool contest sponsored by American Power Conversion (APC). First place in our Data Center Contest wins a Nintendo Wii game system. And we’re giving away twenty (20) copies of System Specifications and Project Manual for Data Centers (a $250 value!) to members just for entering the contest with a valid entry. Enjoy the contest entry below — and feel free to comment.

We also received a couple of photos with this contest entry. These ought to curl your toes…

Community Manager

From a Member who wishes to remain anonymous:

Evolution is supposed to be an systematic increase in order, complexity and efficiency. Well, along the way, Darwin’s concept was forgotten as this “wiring closet” was evolving.

The original panel and wiring was installed in the late 70’s and as extensions and additional outside lines were added, and changed, this arrangement became more …um…interesting.

About half of this company’s PBX telephone gear still runs through this panel, along with all six of their fax lines. The eight incoming telco lines are also present here (somewhere…).

The most recent addition is the network switches and their APC battery backup (barely visible above the switches) that handle about 20 of the company’s 50 workstations.

There is no documentation, no labels, no tags. What the image does not show is the fact that there is about 8 feet of space between the bottom edge of the photo and the floor. So any work done on this panel must be done from a ladder.

Long term plans are to replace the current Executone PBX system (circa 1992) with a new VOIP system, until then, nobody wants to even breathe on this panel for fear of knocking something loose.

Prank Video: You better keep one eye open in this data center

Think of this prank video the next time you get called into an all-nighter emergency at the data center and feel your eyelids growing heavier. Now you know why data center workers consume so much caffeine. Tune in below for more high jinks from the APC crew.

Community Manager

In Focus:Data Center Cooling- Approaches to Avoid

Data center cooling problems can compromise availability and increase costs. The ideal data center cooling system requires an adaptable, highly-available, maintainable, manageable, and cost effective design.When working to design an effective data center cooling system, there are a number of commonly deployed data center cooling techniques that should not be implemented.

They are:
• Reducing the CRAC supply air temperature to compensate for hot spots
• Using cabinet and/or enclosures with either roof-mounted fans and/or under-cabinet floor cut-outs, without internal baffles
• Isolating high-density RLUs

Reducing CRAC Temperatures
Simply making the air colder will not solve a data center cooling problem. The root of the problem is either a lack of cold air volume to the equipment inlet or it is lack of sufficient hot return air removal from the outlet of the equipment. All things equal, any piece of equipment with internal fans will cool it self. Typically, equipment manufactures do not even specify an inlet temperature. They usually provide only a percentage of clear space the front and rear of the equipment must be maintained to ensure adequate convection.

Roof-mounted cabinet fans
CFD analysis conclusively proves that roof-mounted fans and under-cabinet air cut-outs will not sufficiently cool a cabinet unless air baffles are utilized to isolate the cold air and hot air sections. Without baffles, roof-mounted fan will draw not only the desired hot air in the rear, but also a volume of cold air from the front prior to being drawn in by the IT load. This serves only to cool the volume of hot air which we have previously established as a bad strategy. Similarly, providing a cut-out in the access floor directly beneath the cabinet will provide cold air to the inlet of the IT loads, however, it will also leak air into the hot aisle. Again, this only serves to cool the hot air

Isolating high-density equipment
While isolating high-density equipment isn’t always a bad idea, special considerations must be made. Isolating the hot air is in fact, a good idea. However, the problem is in achieving a sufficient volume of cold air from the raised floor. Even then, assuming enough perforated floor tiles are dedicated to provide a sufficient air volume, too much of the hot air re-circulates from the back of the equipment to the front air inlet and combines with the cold air.

Pete

Prank Video: Everybody was kung fu fighting!

This next prank video made me think of that old song Everybody was kung-fu fighting. I’m the curious type, so I had to do a quick search to look up the singer. For you trivia fans, it was written and performed by Carl Douglas. If this song gets stuck in your head for the rest of the day, don’t blame me – and remember – “those cats were fast as lighting”!

Tune in below for more data center antics brought to you by the APC crew.

Community Manager

Prank Video: Busted in the Data Center

All work and no play can make the data center a dull place. How about a little Candid Camera meets Data Center? The APC creative team obliges as they get “creative” with a few unsuspecting colleagues. This is the first of several prank videos – so stayed tuned for more. Thanks.

Community Manager

In Focus: High Density Devices Strain Data Center Resources

A few weeks back I commented on the current boom in data center development. Spurring this trend is the growing need for greater processing power and increased data storage capacity, as well as new Federal regulations which call for better handling and storage of data.
In the scramble to keep up with these demands, the deployment of high density devices and blade servers has become an attractive option for many data center managers. However, a new report from the Aperture Research Institute indicates that “many facilities are not able to handle the associated demand for power and cooling.”
The study, based on interviews with more than 100 data center professionals representing a broad spectrum of industries, reveals that the deployment of high density equipment is creating unforeseen challenges within many data centers.
Highlights of the report include:

• While the majority of data center managers are currently running blade servers in their facilities, traditional servers still comprise the bulk of new server purchases. Mixing blade and non-blade servers in such small quantities can unnecessarily complicate the data center environment and make maintenance more difficult.

• The rising power density of racks makes them more expensive to operate and more difficult to cool. More than one-third of the respondents said their average power density per rack was over 7KW, a scenario that setting the facilities up for potential data center cooling issues and unexpected downtime.

• Respondents report that the majority of data center outages were caused by human error and improper failover.

• What’s really jaw-dropping is that while more than 22% of outages were due to overheating, 21% of respondents admit that they don’t know the maximum power density of their racks. The report points out that “[o]ver 8% of respondents are therefore using high-density devices without tracking power density in a rack, dramatically increasing the potential for outages.”

High density equipment can help data centers keep up with business demands, but only if you can keep things running smoothly. Proper management of power and cooling is essential for meeting the end user’s availability expectations.

Pete