Читать книгу Maintaining Mission Critical Systems in a 24/7 Environment - Peter M. Curtis - Страница 52

In most mission critical facilities, the data center constitutes the critical load in the daily operations of a company or institution. The costs of hardware and software could run $3000‐ $4000 per square foot, often resulting in an investment of millions and millions of dollars depending on size and risk profile. In a data center of only 5000 square feet, you could be responsible for a $20 million capital investment, without even considering the cost of downtime. Combined, the cost of downtime and damage to equipment could be catastrophic.

Proper data center design and operations will protect the investment and minimize downtime. Early in the planning process, an array of experienced professionals must review all the factors that affect operations. This is no time to be “jack of all trades, master of none.” Here are basic steps critical to designing and developing a successful mission critical data center:

Basic Steps to Building a Critical Data Center

 Determine the needs of the client and the reliability of the mission critical data center.

 Develop the configuration for the hardware.

 Calculate the air, water, and power requirements.

 Determine your total space requirements and expected future space requirements.

 Validate the specific site: Be sure that the site is well located and away from natural disasters and that electric, telecommunications, and water utilities can provide the high level of reliability your company requires.

 Develop a layout after all parties agree.

 Design the mission critical infrastructure to (N+1), (N+2), or higher redundancy level, depending on the risk profile and reliability requirements.

 Once a design is agreed upon, prepare a budgetary estimate for the project, ensure a sufficient contingency is included in the budget at this point due to many unknowns and price escalations.

 Have a competent consulting engineer prepare specifications and bid packages for equipment purchases and construction contracts. Use only vendors that are familiar with and experienced in the mission critical industry.

 After bids are opened, select, and interview vendors and contractors. Take time to carefully choose the right vendors. Make sure you see their work; ask many questions; verify references and be sure that everybody is on the same page.

 Update the project budget with proper adjustments from the received vendor and contractor bids. Contingency can be reduced now that base costs are received but not eliminated! Unforeseen construction issues, last‐minute design changes, or Owner changes will cause cost increase to occur.