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By Lee Kirby
For years, the data center industry has accepted that human operational error, not poor data center design or engineering, is the number one cause of data center downtime (70%). Today, Uptime Institute has recognized this with the new Tier Standards on Operational Sustainability. As the industry begins to adopt these ratings, regulators, insurers and end users are all going to be increasing their scrutiny of data center operations.
Now is the time for you to evaluate your data center operations programs. You may be asked to assess your current position and design an operations program based on your data center’s risk profile. But the road to creating an operations program isn’t easy; especially for companies whose core expertise isn’t in data centers.
Based on the 25+ years we’ve operated data centers, we’ve found 3 key areas that determine the success or failure of a program:
- People. People are the foundation of operational methodology. Hiring, training and retaining the right personnel is essential.
- Processes. Talented individuals can only produce so much. When the processes become the work flow, you will stop seeing 70% of data center failures being blamed on human failure.
- Systems. The mountain of data that must be stored, aggregated, and analyzed cannot be leveraged without effective electronic management systems. With properly implemented systems, empirical data can produce vital information that will allow you to move from a reactive mode to a proactive position.
It’s in these 3 areas (or lack thereof) that we see some of the worst mistakes in data center operations programs. As you wait to see the effects of the new tier standards, get a jump start on your operations program. If you want to know more, take a look at our new white paper, “The Top 10 Mistakes in Data Center Operations.” If the title wasn’t a giveaway, we’ll walk you the biggest mistakes we’ve seen consistently in data center operations programs and how to
avoid them. You might be surprised to see how your program stacks up….
You can download the white paper at by clicking here.
