Data centers serve vital functions that allow modern companies to operate smoothly. When designed properly and optimized for reliable performance, they increase the reliability and capacity of connected businesses. Whether you are building a new data center or want to make the most of a currently operating one, these four data center best practices are a great place to start.
1. How to Choose the Best Data Center Location for Reliability & Cost Savings
Choosing a data center location is one of the most important steps in planning. The site you choose must have the necessary space and infrastructure to meet your needs.
You want to look at areas with favorable costs, including real estate, taxes, and utilities. Although insurance can help protect you against most disasters, such as flooding or fires, you still want to make accommodations for unexpected situations. Consider the following data center tips when choosing a location.
Availability of Required Infrastructure
To ensure uninterrupted operations, your data center must have essential infrastructure components in place. Here are the top requirements to consider:
- HVAC: Servers and other network equipment generate a tremendous amount of heat. HVAC systems are necessary to remove excess heat, provide sufficient cool air, and keep air flowing around the equipment.
- Network access: High-speed fiber networks are a must for any modern data center. Any location should have recently installed fiber cabling or a plan in place for its installation. This can help you avoid some of the most common data center connectivity pain points.
- Power supply: Data centers are power-hungry operations. If you are considering an existing building, ensure its power supply is robust enough to handle usage with minimal outages.
Failure to account for these needs can lead to unexpected expenses, delays in construction, and potential security challenges down the road. It may also affect system reliability.
Space Requirements
One of the most significant factors you must consider when choosing a data center location is the amount of physical space you need. Look beyond immediate needs to allow for potential expansion, especially if you are in a high-growth industry.
Available Incentives
Some localities offer incentives to attract businesses like data centers. Large-scale data center planners should work with state and local leaders to develop a plan that is favorable for everyone involved and will eventually bring end users to the area. Look for tax breaks, discounted utilities, and similar offerings.
2. Maintain Compliance With Industry Regulations
Many regulations apply to data centers and the exact ones you must follow vary depending on your industry. For example, data centers handling healthcare information must maintain HIPAA compliance to ensure patient privacy.
Financial service and E-commerce providers also have specific industry standards that govern data management. No matter your industry, you must maintain compliance with applicable standards.
PCI-DSS
The Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard establishes processes for protecting users’ financial data. Compliance is required for any network that processes credit card payments. The standard details monitoring, audits, and reporting to ensure your network complies with security best practices.
SSAE 18
Statements on Standards for Attestation Engagement 18 is a guideline primarily for financial reporting. It applies to many service organizations and establishes rules for managing and reporting the controls affecting users’ privacy, security, and confidentiality.
Uptime Institute’s Tier Certifications
The Uptime Institute uses a four-level tiered system to rate network performance and security features. Data centers should aim for a Tier 3 or higher certification to ensure optimal reliability with minimal disruptions. Uptime Institute standards provide guidance for all stages of data center design and construction.
3. Data Center Security: Essential Strategies to Protect Your Infrastructure
Overall security is among the most important data center best practices. This includes both physical plant security and that of the data moving within networks. When designing a data center, you must take steps to ensure both are secure.
Physical Security
Maintaining the integrity of your data center calls for comprehensive screening and monitoring. This provides a level of security that you are not welcoming potential threats onto the premises.
- Controlling access to infrastructure through biometrics and other strict forms of identity verification
- Installing fencing, gates, locks, and other access control methods to limit access to the site
- Screening of all employees and contractors who have access to the physical location
- Using robust surveillance technology to monitor all areas of the data center
The overall physical security plan you develop must consider who needs access to your data center and you can best safely provide that.  Â
Network Security
Proper segmentation and routing of all data is vital to maintaining network security. Conducting regular audits is a solid data center tip. It ensures oversight of operations and can spot weaknesses before they are exploited. Some other network security strategies to consider include:
- AI threat detection
- Data encryption
- Role-based access control
While these strategies will help you limit security breaches, they may not prevent all of them. That is why data center best practices also usually involve response and recovery plans. These establish procedures for documenting and responding to data security incidents. They also lay out how you will get operations back on track after a serious breach or natural disaster.
4. Optimize System Design for Organization and Flexibility
Data centers use miles of cabling to maintain connections. An optimized ground-up design will help keep cables organized, neat, and safe. A cable management plan is something that you must include from the very start of your system design. Your design should consider:
- Airflow and cooling
- Efficient server and equipment placement
- Power distribution
You should also consider flexibility in the design process. For example, leave room for expansion by installing components that can grow with your operations. Another strong data center best practice is to include redundancy in the design. For example, automatic backup power supplies keep systems online during unplanned outages.
Implement Data Center Best practices With Equal Optics
Equal Optics is a leader in network solutions. We work with companies worldwide to design effective and efficient systems. Our team can advise you about data center best practices to optimize your designs. Contact us to get started.
