Smart Data Center physical infrastructure solutions

Data Center Services & Solutions

A data center is a repository that houses computing facilities like servers, routers, switches and firewalls, as well as supporting components like backup equipment, fire suppression facilities and air conditioning. A data center may be complex (dedicated building) or simple (an area or room that houses only a few servers). Additionally, a data center may be private or shared.

Data center components often make up the core of an organization's information system (IS). Thus, these critical data center facilities usually require a significant investment of supporting systems, including air conditioning/climate control systems, fire suppression/smoke detection, secure entry and identification and raised floors for easy cabling and water damage prevention.

A server room is a room used to store, power and operate computer servers and their associated components. This room is part of a data center, which typical houses several physical servers lined up together in different form factors, such as rack mounted, or in tower or blade enclosures. A data center might consist of several server rooms, each of which is used for separate applications and services.

What Is a Data Center Team?

In a nutshell, a data center team is a group of individuals that are responsible for all cabling, hardware installation, and data center maintenance. In startup companies or those with hybridized roles, a data center engineer can also moonlight as a hardware engineer/server administrator. More on that later.

While software engineers and sales get arguably the most publicity, with the exceptions of upper management of course, it's the data center team that keeps the hardware that runs your lucrative product going. If there is an outage that threatens your promised 99.9999999999* uptime guarantee, you can bet, there's a data center engineer neck deep in cables, trying to fix the problem, in a piping hot data center space.

What Are the Requirements For a Data Center Engineer/Tech/Manager?

This is a matter of opinion of course based on my experience in this field. Different companies have different requirements depending on their needs. One theme that seems to be ongoing is the requirement for "overqualified" engineers. Meaning, companies usually can't define what they are looking for in a DCE, so they copy/paste the requirements for, say, a network administrator, or a server administrator. Don't get me wrong. DCEs should still be very qualified, but those qualifications should line up with what they do. No pressing need for an advanced network engineering or software engineering degree when your primary role is troubleshooting hardware and cabling.

There’s also the logical or virtual side of data center technician work - these individuals may run reports related to the operation of a data center that have more to do with the data coming in and out than anything physical or mechanical.

In general, the data center technician may be responsible for handling questions and concerns from various sources and providing the right information to business leaders about what a data center is doing and how to optimize these business processes.

In terms of technology requirements, data center technicians may be asked about competency with operating systems, as well as various scripting languages and different kinds of network hardware deployment. Employers also may ask about certifications from groups like CompTIA as part of data center technician qualifications.

Do I Need a Data Center Team?

Let's get the obvious questions out of the way. Do you have a data center? If the answer is no, then the answer to the question above is also no. Now, let's assume you have a data center that you feel may need a team. I will ask the big questions below.

• How large is your data center footprint? There is no set number here, but I would say a "few server cabinets" does not warrant a team of engineers. When I started at my first data center position, our company had upwards of 200+ cabinets across its data centers globally... and no data center team. I had my work cut out for me. For simplicity's sake, let's say 40 cabinets is a good starting point when considering forming a data center team.
• Is your response/fix time for hardware issues unacceptable? I'll bet it is! One of the untold advantages of having a team of DCEs is the major reduction in hardware/network related outages. If you take nothing else away from this article, TAKE THIS!! Seriously, if I ever have to argue to necessity of my job, this will be my number one selling point. See the image below.

Prior to our company bringing on a DC team, a significant segment of repair time for network outages was spent just trying to find/trace the troubled connection. With labeling, velcro, color coding, and proper documentation, that process was eliminated. I can't stress enough how beneficial DC teams are for uptime.

Companies will typically hire individuals as data center managers to plan and monitor all of the processes involved in creating and using data centers in a business. On the planning side, this involves a lot of work in terms of exactly what is needed to support existing business processes. After the data center is set up, data center managers may spend a lot of time monitoring and evaluating data security, the proper flow of data through middleware or other support systems, or the maintenance of data center tier levels, which create more fault-tolerant systems for these IT infrastructures. A specific form of data center management is now called data center infrastructure management (DCIM), where data center managers will focus attention on physical and asset-based maintenance strategies.

By investing in a data center manager role and assorted technologies that will help monitor data center operations, companies are investing in core pieces of their IT systems. Data centers that work well will effectively keep necessary information on hand as long as it is valuable to the business. These systems also support the kinds of complicated data mining and data capture that businesses use to reach customers more effectively, optimize all kinds of physical and cognitive business processes, and chart the best path for growth or expansion in the future.