As we all well know, it can be easy to let something spiral out of control if left unmaintained, with server room infrastructure being particularly vulnerable to a downward spiral.  Due to the common complexity of data centres to the untrained eye, many businesses are often involuntarily ignorant in maintaining and upholding standard and procedure, resulting in potentially dangerous and expensive problems that can dramatically hinder and potentially damage your business.    

Wiring

You’ve probably seen it… or you’re guilty of it. A cascade of unorganised wiring can rapidly develop over time if left to grow freely. Many infrastructures become riddled with chaotic wiring, and other than creating an eye sore, it can become a recipe for disaster when attempting any maintenance or when trying to understand which wire does what.

From a maintenance perspective, if you wish to develop or refresh your data centre in the future, having untamed wiring quickly becomes troublesome, confusing and even costly if things are to go wrong (which they likely are if your wiring is in a state). Reasons being is that if you have failed to maintain your infrastructure, an engineer may need to readjust and potentially tamper with wiring to come a solution - which may lead to what would have been avoidable downtime and potential loss of data.

If your wiring is currently in a mess or is creeping towards become one, make some changes whilst you can, or read more here about solutions we can offer you: https://www.infiniti-it.co.uk/maintenance

Cooling

Keeping your data centre at the right temperature is self-explanatory. If you can’t maintain a stable temperature for your data centre, you need to reconsider your current practice as you could be putting your data in serious harm’s way by not only increasing the chances of fire, you are also potentially hindering the speed of your data transfer due to the increased stress on the servers from the heat.

A simple fan or small air conditioning unit doesn’t cut it, even for the smallest of data centres. If your data centre is continuously overheating due to your negligence in keeping its temperature at bay, be sure to quickly succumb to the need for a proper system to avoid any heart wrenching damages. There are several different specifications available for cooling that cater to different needs, find out more here: https://www.infiniti-it.co.uk/installation/cooling

Fire Suppression

As well as cooling solutions, implementing a fire suppression system as a powerful failsafe is also routinely recommended. Fire suppression systems are quickly becoming more advanced in their execution –  voiding the risk of any elongated damage to your data centre.

Originally, fire suppression was primarily delivered through the dispatch of water-based solutions that often led to destroying an entire infrastructure, rather than just homing in on the concentrated incident. However, modern technology has allowed for less potent solutions that in case often removes the risk of your entire infrastructure being lost if a fire is to occur, due to their natural components being non-damaging to anything other than the fire.  If you’re interested in finding out more about fire suppression, or you are looking to have one fitted, find out more here: https://www.infiniti-it.co.uk/installation/fire-suppression

Monitoring

Monitoring is quite rightly its own entity and can be encompassing of almost every possible process and operation that occurs within your infrastructure. Ranging from environmental monitoring systems to leak detection, there is a lot of opportunity for modern data centres to be supervised.  

By implementing any kind of monitoring system into your infrastructure is a step forward in maintaining good practice, as they can allow for the prevention of and the ability to solve a mixture of potential problems that can plague and hinder data centre performance.

We do recommend that you consider your options and identify the risks associated with your infrastructure, and act accordingly to implement the systems right for you.

To conclude, there is no excuse for a modern data centre to have poor and unmaintained infrastructure. The availability of information on maintenance and upkeep of modern data centres is and has been growing at an unprecedented rate, and consultancy is often widely available to further supplement you.