Whether fully owned or outsourced, data centers and server rooms are critical facilities for the vast majority of businesses one of the main concerns is business continuity, company rely on their information systems to run their operations and critical data, protecting operations and critical data is as important as ensuring uptime and availability of service, if a system becomes unavailable, company operations might be impaired or even stopped completely
So what is a server room
A server room is a data center committed to bestow a computer service to secure, genuine and solid performance; it consists of several major parts, listing
Electric engineering
Cabling system
Air conditioner
Room design
As well as connecting hardware ;
Server rack Connectors Sockets, plugs, adapters, patch panels, and a cabling system
What are the actual standards for a proper server room
The best way to manage and to keep a server room tide and steady is by following several steps to prevent any failure
"Prevention is better than cure"
1 give your servers a room of their own
Even if today’s open-plan office culture, the servers are so important they deserve their own space and perfectly designed room; it doesn’t need to be a large one, especially if there is only one server to run, however, it must be somewhere that is protected against water and fire
Concerning the proper location:
General Space Characteristics Room specifications Room walls, ceiling, and doors should be sound isolated from other occupied areas.
Doors should be 42" to 48" wide, and 8' tall.
Antistatic floor finishing (no wax) is recommended for raised floor tiles or sheet vinyl.
The room should not have windows (for security, sound, and environmental management reasons).
Equipment Maximum electrical density of computing equipment in a server room should not exceed 300 watts per square foot.
Computer racks should have seismic bracing and proper grounding.
Computer racks should have adequate clearance per manufacturer specifications (but no less than 48" front and 36" rear clearance); the room itself should have a minimum 9' ceiling.
The room should have at least one phone.
important;
Proper Location
The site location should be safe from exposure to fire, flood, explosion and other similar hazards;
Server rooms should be located in areas where noise will not disturb the workplace
2 The right environment
Servers operate most effectively at around 20 degrees Celsius, allowing them to get too cold or too hot it increases the risk of failure, cooling in summer can be a challenge because as the servers process s data they generate their own heat, raising up the temperature
An ideal server room must have a thermostatically controlled air conditioning that maintains a constant temperature all the time.
3 Server racks
As much equipment as possible should be in a proper rack, when possible, it is necessary to rack equipment using the rail kits available, simply stacking equipment leads to problems when it comes to equipment maintenance,this makes it difficult to remove or work on an item because the desired piece is acting as a shelf to other equipment.
4 Must be kept tidy and clean
Rubbish and wires are two common hazards of a server room, rubbish accumulate when the room becomes a convenient place to dump unneeded boxes, spare brochures or redundant equipment
Concerning the wires, meters of cables are usually required to connect all the IT equipment together, if it’s not maintained tidy or labeled it's easy for the cabling to become confusing, risking of equipment being disconnected by accident.
5 Secure Room
The foundation of any good server closet is a dedicated and secure room. In this day and age of security concerns, a top priority for all firms should be a secured room that will house their infrastructure. An unlocked server room is an open invitation to any passerby to wreak havoc on the heart of your firm’s business. Only select people should have access to this room.
6 Uninterruptible Power Supply
We often overlook the uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units as a requirement. But, having these units not only protect your equipment from power outages for a period of time, but they also condition the power coming in. This ensures that there are not any surges or drops in voltage. With properly configured units you can automatically shut down equipment when the unit reaches a specified low battery condition. UPS units can also monitor the temperature in your server room. Alerting can be configured to send out email notifications when certain conditions are met like loss of power or high temperatures so you can fix problems before it is too late.
7 Monitoring the situation
It’s easy to shut the door on the server room and assume everything is okay. Basing your IT strategy on the wisdom ‘if it isn’t broke, don’t fix it’ may work up to a point, but eventually something will break, and almost inevitably, it’ll be at the least convenient moment. Today’s monitoring technology makes it very easy to keep an eye on almost every aspect of your hardware and software, from anywhere with an internet connection. It’s highly efficient, with human intervention only required when a problem, or potential problem, trips an alert. Proactive monitoring allows you to spot issues before they have any impact on business processes, giving you time to fix them with little or no interruption to day-to-day commercial activity
To conclude For many businesses a server room is one of the first steps into a big-league; therefore Your server room is the heart of your business. Data and information is the life blood of modern businesses today. A poorly designed server room will lead to on-going costs and BIG failures
