A data center is the central brain of a company. It is the housing location for IT equipment and servers that help a business function properly. Designing a data center is a big undertaking because of the time, effort, considerations and costs that go into it. A proper data center must meet the current needs of a business while leaving room for expansion.
Room to Grow
Because of the cost, a properly designed data center needs to give thought to the future. The initial expense is high, but retrofitting an existing data center is even more monumental. Because of this, taking into account floor space, server space and power and cooling requirements from the outset is critical for future expansion.
If you work for a small business with dreams of expanding, the square footage you need now will likely grow in the future. Make a plan for expansion space. Also, consider the power and cooling needs. As you add more machines and servers, the electrical needs will increase along with the cooling requirements to mitigate the heat from the added units. Don’t forget to make room for empty server racks to be used in the future.
The Proper Foundation
A good design will fail if the wiring strategy is not up to par. Focus on creating a wiring strategy that reduces power and server outages while ensuring that adding equipment is quick and efficient. A poorly executed wiring strategy will result in a mess in your data center.
To achieve wiring success, focus on cable management within the server racks. As your data center grows, so will the number of cables. Sometimes hundreds will be protruding from the server racks. Cable managers can help avoid tangles, while labels will ensure troubleshooting is quick and painless.
Data Center Design Courses
Getting a feel for best practices may be helpful before setting out on this type of creation. A data center design course can arm you with ways to implement critical decisions. From case studies to real-world scenarios, this type of training can give you the knowledge you need to tackle and excel at designing data centers.
Anyone involved in the planning and operation of data design centers should start with proper education to best execute functioning data facilities. Information architects, engineers, designers, IT managers and facility supervisors would benefit from hands-on training. Once you have the knowledge, creating a strategy to meet current needs and plan for growth is achievable.
