Professional Help for the Data Center
Apr. 10, 2007

If data centers had emotions, many of them would be feeling stressed-out these days.  Stuffed with high-density rack-mounted servers, switches and other IT equipment, today’s data centers are frequently straining the limits of heating and cooling capacity and could certainly benefit from some professional help.

In fact, 50 percent of data centers will have insufficient power and cooling capacity by next year, according to research firm Gartner. Beyond adequate capacity, data centers need to have a plan for when the power goes out. 

For small installations, perhaps battery backup is adequate if all you need to do is to save data until utility power is back online.  If you need to keep critical systems running when normal power fails, your data center will need at least one dedicated generator, which should be checked out by a specialist known as a commissioning agent.

It’s tempting for IT managers to try to address power and cooling issues internally, but this is one area where it makes sense to bring in the experts.  Energy management is a complicated field that has nothing to do with operating systems or software configurations, but is just as critical to the IT infrastructure.

Look to engineers who specialize in power, cooling and fire-suppression systems for data centers to ensure your data center can scale out to meet your future business needs.  After all, even the most advanced and optimized IT components won’t help your organization if they’re steamed and frazzled.

Previous Blog Posts
11.07.07 - Scaling Out Strategically
08.28.07 - How to Cut Costs and Save the World
07.17.07 - Planting the Seeds for Datacenter Greenery
06.26.07 - Scale Out Zen — Do More with Less
06.14.07 - iSCSI...About to Go Mainstream?
05.30.07 - Is Your Data Center in a State of Quiet Desperation?
05.17.07 - EPA Data Center Guidelines: IT Power Use Is in the Spotlight
05.09.07 - Virtualized Data Needs Protection, Too
04.19.07 - Disaster Recovery on the Back Burner? Careful, It May Catch on Fire
04.10.07 - Professional Help for the Data Center
03.27.07 - Survey Shows Virtualization Taking Off
03.14.07 - Tackling Data Protection Alphabet Soup
03.07.07 - The Cost of Not Protecting Data
02.28.07 - Going Green to Conserve Energy in the Data Center
01.30.07 - Global Warming in the Data Center
12.02.06 - Open Standards Is for Systems Management Too
11.22.06 - Virtually Ready for Primetime
11.14.06 - Technology No Substitute for Communication
10.16.06 - Running a Data Center? What's Your Problem?