Storage Considerations in Data Center Design

Designing a data centre is an elaborate process and requires a great deal of planning, with multiple factors to be considered. One of the primary concerns for any data centre is the management of data and applications on the servers in the data center. 

Make sure that you take into account all of the following criteria while planning your data center or server room.

Reliability

As the name suggests, reliability is the facet of data storage that deals with making sure that the data once stored in a data center retains its authenticity and is not lost. A reliable data center makes sure that all the data stored inside it is done on media that is not faulty or face chances of failure. A disk crashing or getting completely or partially erased can turn out to be detrimental for a business and the damage caused can be irreparable. 

While there can be many causes for such failures, the most common one tends to be extremely high temperatures causing damage to equipment. Therefore, planning of cooling systems and server rack perforation play a key role in mitigating this type of failure.

Availability

In today’s world where data availability is considered a given, unplanned downtime caused as a result of a fault or a failure is simply not acceptable. The average yearly unplanned downtime is estimated to be around five minutes per year. Even planned downtime is dropping at an exponential rate which means that data availability is a crucial factor when designing data centers. 

A smart data centre ensures that no power failure, equipment failure or security breach happens which can potentially result in unplanned downtime. Introducing power backup, stringent physical and cloud security measures are a few steps that can be taken to ensure maximum availability. 

Serviceability

This aspect of data center design is directly linked with availability. We have already discussed how having downtime and cutting access off of the data is no longer an acceptable option and that is why the focus must shift towards serviceability. 

In this context, serviceability means that the system must still be fully functional even when the systems are being serviced. This requires highly serviceable systems which are able to seamlessly switch their load to different parts of the system and still ensure data availability throughout the process. Service-friendly server racks, PDUs, and cable raceways have an important role to play in this.

Disaster Recovery 

A data breach or failure can be lethal for a business and can result in a loss of customer loyalty and huge costs which might be practically irrecoverable. 

Depending on the sensitivity of the data, it is advisable that data center designers also create smaller, remote locations which are able to sync data from the main data centre and can be used for recovery in the case of a failure.

Compliance

Compliance is a huge part of running a successful data center in today’s day and age. It is advisable that you consult the legal department of your company to finalize security policies and secure all avenues, even e-mails that might contain components of data. 

Some of the important security criteria to be followed for compliances involve server room level, and also server rack level access control. Making use of biometrics for this purpose can go a long way in preventing data breaches, and in ensuring compliance to security standards.

The above are some of the major design components that must be kept in mind when designing a data center. At Hardy Racks, we specialize in consulting and implementing data centers that optimize your data storage and management. Talk to us today to see how we can improve data storage at your facility!