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Mission Critical: Datacentre Site Selection and Management Australia-based McSorley, who works in Global Technical Services at Siemon and specialises in datacentre design, says datacentres are becoming
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“My perception is that the
requirement for [data] storage is increasing just as quick as or even quicker than electronics are getting smaller.” The FM of a datacentre has got to focus on the essential services to the facility, such as continuity of power supply and properly scheduled maintenance.
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| datacentre designs “Building design is very important to the facility management of a datacentre,” says Scott. Design specifications need to have sufficient capacity for the requirements of a datacentre, which centre primarily around creating an air-conditioned environment that has the right level of humidity. “So whether it is designing it [the datacentre] from scratch or whether you are looking at a particular building and using it for a datacentre, you would need to be able to check those things out in advance,” says Scott. You cannot afford to go cutting costs if it means that there is more chance of your datacentre going down. Although FMs are not typically involved in the datacentre design process, Scott says this is changing and is something that JLL pushes, not just for datacenters but in general. JLL has its own project management arm that works on identifying where facilities experts need to get involved. Scott says that in a best practice situation, a facilities expert would attend design meetings and review drawings. There are a couple of different kinds of datacentre designs, says McSorley. There are those that are fully occupied by one tenant and those that have multiple occupants, otherwise known as co-located datacentres. How security is addressed in the latter is very important, as there needs to be heightened security around the most critical parts of the datacentre. It is recommended that access to the centre be controlled through biometric applications, such as palm or iris recognition, rather than proximity cards that can be passed on to anyone and allow for tailgating into the datacentre. McSorley says that some datacentres “actually weigh people as they are going in or out – so they can actually physically see whether equipment has been stolen or not”. He adds that some defense related datacentres require 24-hour clearance, using police checks and so forth. Perimeter security outside the building is also a key issue.  room to grow As with any other facility, another important factor is the amount of space that will be required for business growth, however, with the added consideration that IT equipment is getting smaller. This means you can pick a facility of a particular size that will suit your needs for a very long time, says Scott, because if you are adopting smaller equipment that has less heat load, you can effectively grow but stay in the same physical space. He adds: “If you do not appreciate those factors, you may end up investing too much in real estate.” However, McSorley believes the expectation that microelectronics means you require less space “is a bit of a fallacy. My perception is that the requirement for [data] storage is increasing just as quick as or even quicker than electronics are getting smaller.” Gone are the days when people used to store everything on a hard disk on their local PC drive, says McSorley. Servers are no longer being located in offices. They are being consolidated back into the datacentre, so the requirement for storage space is on the increase. He says the lifecycle of a datacentre generally varies between five and ten years (up to 40 years for some datacentres) and that trying to accommodate for growth is very difficult. McSorley likens the datacentre to a breathing lung; as the requirement for storage space gets bigger, the datacentre gets larger but then as microelectronics come down in size, the space requirement gets smaller. Another aspect for the FM to consider is that whilst the miniturisation of electronics is occurring, the requirements for power, heating and cooling are steadily going up, says McSorley. He adds that the “requirement for power today is probably double what it was five years ago”. Although the components in modern datacentres are small, some generate a huge amount of heat, and when you walk behind them it can feel similar to “a low wattage hairdryer,” says McSorley. With so many components able to fit into such a small area, he adds that all of this excess heat can create a fire hazard, which is again something that the FM should take precautions against. FMs should also make sure that as the components used in datacentres create more heat, the air-conditioning systems are kept up to speed, so that the temperature remains at a constant 22 degrees Celsius. Because it is necessary to keep the temperature level constant, additional air conditioning capacity will be required when more equipment is added, says McSorley. For this reason, datacentres are not particularly environmentally friendly, with McSorley likening them to a “V8 supercar”. He says a lot of companies in Australia are actually moving datacentres out of their buildings and choosing to locate them somewhere else, in order to gain a fivestar energy rating. Datacentres are typically found in the basements of buildings, says Scott. McSorley believes this has been the case as often the mandate of an architect is maximum lettable floor area. However, the problem with this is that often the basements of buildings are subject to environmental hazards, such as flooding. Again, as security is of critical importance, a discreet location, such as a residential or semi-residential area, is desirable because datacenters tend to be more inconspicuous in these environments, says McSorley. He recommends looking to avoid city centres and prime locations, such as monuments and major buildings, as these are obvious terrorist targets. an expensive business In a datacentre, operational risk is imperative. JLL’s Scott says: “You cannot afford to go cutting costs if it means that there is more chance of your datacentre going down”. For example, to save money one might reduce maintenance costs, and “you might save US$10,000 or US$20,000 but you might lose millions of dollars because it was not as reliable”, says Scott. However, he adds that “ultimately, as long as the risk is covered, obviously the client is happy if the cost can be reduced”.  Despite the fact that there is not much corner cutting and a lot of money being invested in datacentre management, Scott says it is perhaps not as lucrative as one might think from a facilities perspective, as the scope is not very broad. Very few people work in datacentres so the soft services, including cleaning, cafeteria, general security and meeting room management – all of the things that are necessary in the workplace - do not happen in a datacentre. This means that whilst the function the FM is performing is critical, the service intensity is lower and the service scope is narrower, says Scott. clear procedures The FM processes and procedures need to be very clear when there is a shutdown for maintenance, says Scott. He likens it to the procedures a pilot and a copilot go through onboard an aeroplane. Both have a checklist to ensure that everything has been taken care of before shutdown. If this is not done properly you might not be able to operate the facility, or aeroplane, again. To assist with this, JLL has set up a Critical Operations Advisory Board (COAB), consisting of engineers and technical people from around its business, who track the critical facilities it manages. Scott says this provides “advice and technical support to the technical FMs, who have responsibility for running these centres”. The FM of a datacentre has got to focus on the essential services to the facility, such as continuity of power supply and properly scheduled maintenance. The FM also has to make sure that the equipment servicing the datacentre is maintained properly. Scott says the FM is not responsible for managing the IT equipment, that is the servers and storage devices inside, because that is typically the IT department’s job. “What we are doing as FMs is managing the ‘envelope’, which means that it is the physical building the datacentre is in and also the central supplies”, such as gas suppression systems, fi re systems and electricity. Yet without this support, mission critical facilities would not be able to perform their primary funcion. RFP
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“The requirement for power today is probably double what it was fi ve years ago.” |
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Key title: RFP magazine
Abbreviated key title: RFP mag.
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