David Cappuccio

It’s often a very lengthy process to get approval to build a data center.   One problem with the whole process is that funding is often a criteria for approval and yet until the project is “official” little has been done with the eventual design of the data center – which in turn could have a dramatic effect on the funds needed.  10 or 15 years ago this wasn’t the case as most data centers were built to the same basic specifications and the only real variants were tier level (availability) and occasionally the power envelope needed.  In today’s world though many things have changed and the number of decisions and choices designers need to address continue to increase.  Yes, we could still build data centers the old fashioned way, but I suspect that would be a seriously career threatening move.

The fundamental problem with almost all data center projects is that those people who get “volunteered” to manage them rarely have experience in building data centers – it’s often a once in a career activity, so the most critical success factor is knowing what to ask, and who to talk to.  Below are 10 questions we think you should be asking, right up front, of yourself, your boss, the facilities team, the designers, and other key contacts you trust.  Without these answers, or at least some guidelines on how to get them, your chances of success are slim indeed.  Over the next few weeks I will be digging into each of these areas in more detail – so stay tuned…

1. How big is big enough?
   The first question asked is often the most difficult to answer, or the simplest.  “It depends” might be valid for an analyst, but not when you’re potentially spending 10’s of millions of dollars on a new data center.  And the difficult part of this question is not figuring out how much you need – it’s figuring out what you need in 15 years.
2. How much availability do I really need?
   Data Centers are generally defined by tier level; which essentially dictate the availability (up-time) goals for the environment.  While industry standard TIA 942 is often cited, many companies use The Uptime Institute’s 4 Tier availability guidelines as a good rule of thumb in early design stages.  Determining this tier is critical, as upwards of 60% of your capital budget can be determined by your tiering decision.
3. How much energy will I need?
   Traditional data centers were built with a static energy footprint designed to support the maximum capacity of typical IT equipment of the time.  This model no longer works and data centers need to be designed with energy scalability in mind to support future installations of very high density rack environments.
4. What about Green?
   Are there Green technologies on the market or emerging that I need to be aware of when designing a new data center?  From a design perspective what are the most efficient ways to use handle head and cooling loads within a data center?
5. How long should it last?
   What is a realistic life cycle for a new data center?  Traditional data centers were build to last 15 or 20 years, but with today’s rapidly changing technologies and compute demands is this a realistic timeframe?  Are there ways to extend the life of a new data center well beyond 20 years?
6. Are all applications created equal?
   In traditional data center design we build to support the exceptions – high availability, high performance and scalability.  But do all your applications need these levels of support?  Can I build an environment to support different service and technology levels, based on the requirements of my applications?
7. What are the newest design trends today?
   What are the dominant trends in data center design today and what are the benefits and tradeoffs when using (or ignoring) them?
8. Should I build one or build many?
   In consolidation projects the most often asked question is “how many data centers do I need?”  The answers revolve around risk and reward, capital budgets, geography, service levels and recovery time objectives.  And in some cases building two can be less expensive than one.
9. What about BCDR?
   When planning a new data center should I be building out my business continuity plans as well – or perhaps considering BC/DR in the overall design phase?  Are there new techniques in solving the BC/DR issues while still providing high growth and redundancy levels for critical applications?
10. Who will build it – and what should I ask up front?
    How do we determine the engineering firm, the construction company, the subcontractors, the commissioning firm, etc. etc. etc.  Are there current best practices to watch out for, or worst practices?