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Build the Best Data Center Facility for Your Business Review by Joel E. Natt
Guidance for Building a Data Center
When individuals consider recent events from natural disasters like hurricanes and earthquakes to terrorist attacks like September 11th, not to mention new government regulations within areas like HIPAA and Sarbanes-Oxley the need to secure organizations information is becoming more critical. Thus an organizations desire to design and/or construct a data center that will meet these needs has increased.
With in the book "Building the Best Data Center Facility for Your Business" by Douglas Alger guidance for items that need to be considered are presented in a detailed format. The general population and most companies assume that they can set a computer room or data area up without any issues or difficulties, hence it is always assumed that if you have knowledge of Server and Network design and someone that has an understanding of construction you can do it. But when you design a Data Center and consider items like power usage and cooling needs, you need to consider other items like fire suppression and redundant power sources. Within Alger's book we see items that most computer engineers will take for granted like raised flooring, and HVAC (cooling). But we also see items that some may consider common sense like generator power and supply guidance for fueling these generators.
This book I found an excellent baseline and for as the author said in the introductory pages "Setting up a data center is easy. Except that the first time you do it you're going to screw up badly." Hence as I read this book I found myself returning to discussions and implementations I did a few years ago and could see where we made mistakes and learned from them. Alger was correct in his statement and I was further able to reflect in my mind on the discussions that we had on items that included spacing and area needed for computers and networks then on topics like power utilization and cooling needs where always being considered. As I mentioned Alger's book provided me with reflections and will provide anyone reading it individuals with the needed initial guidance on either building or what to consider when improvements both a computer rooms or a data centers. While this book may appear small at only 374 pages including the index, its detail and guidance will add to anyone's knowledge or needs.
Some of the information and definitions like what is a "U" and the difference between DC and AC power are discussed ,but also items like how to properly clean the room with pH neutral items and services as well as how to gather metrics only enhance the books value and understanding. While the book does limit itself to certain rack sizes and power utilizations not comparable with newer equipment occurring today, it does provide an excellent guideline.
I can only hope that you like myself find the book informative and consider it, if nothing more than a guidance on how to work with a proper computer room and data center environment.