Data Center Justification

I am facing a dilemma right now. The data center that is at my current job is dated. I believe it was put in the 60's. Now, since it is dated my objective is to get it rennovated.

The problem is accounting wants justification for that to happen. The first route i was taking was that the servers are running too hot. In 2 of the racks we had temperatures at 101 F and 98 F. Well they wanted proof from a manufacturer that stated that was too hot. so i started looking around, only thing i can find is an operating range for our servers. 45- 95 with 45% RH. Now that doesnt really dictate what i want because we can drop the temp in the room to 65 and then my servers equal out at about 90ish. In my opinion if you can keep your coffee warm behind a sever its too hot. Thats not good enough for the accountants.

I need someway to justify, with stats and facts, that I have a true need for funding for a new data center.

Issues I have: ceiling is old and missing tiles in various places. I dont think its fire resistant and our suppression system is Halon which requires a sealed room for the gas to work effectively/

Floor is only raised 6 inches, has holes cut in in all over the place, is filthy above and below it.

We have no wire trays so electric wires and network wires run over one another in a giant rats nest. If a line went bad i wouldnt have any method to trouble shoot it other than run a new one.

I am looking for any advice or stats anyone can give me to help justify this to the books for a new room.

Thanks in advance
Spy

Make an Itemized list in layman terms of what you need fixed right away then make a second list of what needs to be fixed but can wait a bit... then present it to your management. hopefully they are willing to work with you. that is my suggestion... a 40 year old data center is just too old...

The accountants get to make the decisions about what gets done? What a backwards way to do things. Try to get upper management to buy off on it and bypass the accounting people.

As for the renovations. Do you really need to renovate the place? If you're having to ask an outside source for a reason to have it renovated I would venture to guess that you don't. Other than that, the proof is right in front of you. I doubt anyone could come up with a reason without looking at your setup.

Halon?

:shocked:

http://www.chubb.co.uk/chserver/requ...00c/oldNav/000

Try the Montreal Protocol, to which the USA is a signatory ;)

I'm pretty sure Halon is allowed to be used where it is already installed, but cannot be refilled. In any case, this could be a good reason for a renovation, to upgrade the fire supression system.

nihil

you beat me to the Halon, this was used in a lot of workspaces I was involved with, this system will Kill a person faster then the actual fire, and we had some spaces that required running up stairs to exit the space, so if you were quick you got out okay. :p

Accountants as a rule, do not make the decisions on the spending of capital, they follow the guidelines set out by the General Managers or CEO's who in turn work under the directions of the shareholders (you and me), and if the expenses are higher then the revenue, then some things get tightened and some other projects get shelved, but it is almost always some one else other then the "Accountants" who make these decisions.

For the renovations, the fact that it can be classified as "safety" should get Mgmt to release the purse strings, it sounds like it could be an accident waiting to happen, what with wires being lost in the shuffle, ventilation could be a problem as well if you say it is a sealed room from as far back as the 60's.

pssst call the local Fire Inspector, and have him declare the room not up to standards, this will get people's attention. ;)

Another thought......................

If you have a very shallow underfloor space and the cabling is just snaking around.............what happens when the air conditioning springs a leak and floods it..................seen that happen on an AS/400 site...................not nice :bawling:

Seems like some redesign is required there as well?

;)

Sorry for taking so long to respond to this article but... to answer some questions

Since the money we need to upgrade the data center needs to go through accounting they need cost/risk evaluations of everything. I cant justify why the room needs cooled at 68 degrees since all specs show the operating temperature of servers is a min of 55 and a max of 91. They see that and dont care as long as its under 91.

Nihil... Our AC is in a different part of the building so it cant leak under our server room. (good thinking though)


UPDATE!!

I got our auditors to audit the data center and they came back and said we need wire trays and electrical trays but didnt touch on anything else.

I need to know, with proof if possible, the risk vs cost of replacing our 6inch raised floor with a standard 18-24" raised floor. If I can show that risk outweighs the cost then they will back it 100% but the only thing i can think of right now is the fact that if a flood happened 6 inches isnt enough, also that i think most wire trays are 6 inches deep so it would essentially be sitting on the floor.

I can't think of any other risk assessment forms to justify this and would appreciate any help that could be provided.

Thanks

-Spy

If your data center isn't housing important data, then maybe upgrading isn't neccessary (but what data centre isn't important!)

Internal Audit? Are you able to get a third party into assess against best practices and where the center fails? I'm sure any number of vendors would be happy to do it, of course at a price...

You could also try listing the number of tasks that need doing and an approximate amount of hours and translate into dollars based on market rates so that they can understand... messy cabling can be fixed in the long term...

Are you looking for some sort of sure-fire equation? Because I dont think you'll find it... weighing up the cost of your equipment, cost of downtime in the event of a problem/disaster and existing running costs are just some of the parts of the equation.

Hi Spyrus

You can certainly have them on the halon issue. It is supposed to be phased out, and you cannot get it refilled legally?

What would you have to pay in compensation if that goes wrong? Sure it puts out fires, but it puts out people just as quickly?

The publicity would not be very good, and don't expect the insurers to pay up willingly, they will squeal "contributory negligence" (if you have that over there)

And the killer blow.............politely ask the CIO/CEO if he has taken legal advice as "reckless indifference" is a criminal offence and certainly not a misdemeanour................... :eek:

As for raising the floor, they are going to have to lift it to put in the ducting, so you should be looking for a quote for the additional cost rather than the whole lot.

Do you have sprinklers close by............any chance of flooding from a source other than the AC?

Good luck :)

Nihil,

you are correct it is illegal for them to produce the gas anymore but if you have it in an exisiting location it is considered "grandfathered" in and you didn't have to rid of it. I don't know if that means you were supposed to phase it out or if you can keep it. I didn't realize it was so deadly so it should be fairly easy to get the funding for that but I want the new floor :). As far as the raised floor, they don't see any reason why we need to put in underfloor ducting to create a proper circulation. They seem to think if we fall into the min/max range from an accounting stand point it is good enough. i havent been able to find supporting documentation that states otherwise.

As a heads up i don't mean to shoot down all good Ideas I get, I have just proposed a lot of ideas to our accounting department and they shoot them all down with the answers i have been giving. Since our financial analyst falls under accounting i have to show him otherwise.

thanks again
Spy

Maybe what you need isn't written proof, but someone who is qualified to make that recommendation to make it. In other words, if a security auditor says that something is wrong, you don't look it up for proof as you expect the expert to be right on.

The accountants don't look for proof that 2+2=4 each time they do the math do they? Some things are proven through books, other is proven through expert knowledge.

What about playing the money card ...seeing as this is the accounting department they should be sensitive to money issues.

Hot servers (or any electronic devices) run a shorter lifespan then cool ones ...meaning they need to be changed/fixed more often which costs money doesn't it.

Would a better cooling system not prolong the "life" of the datacenter and save money in the long run ? So invest in a new cooling system and get ROI in the form of a longer lasting datacenter ?

I found some text that addresses this chain of thought here .

Or is this not the right way to think/go ... just trying to help :)

C.

Hello Spyrus

I think that the halon is the line to take. You need to consult with guys who would put in a modern system. Maybe you would need the modern raised floor and circulation to vent the room to protect the staff? ;) I bet you they have no idea how their stuff would work in your current environment?.....so they will go for a modern solution to cover themselves?

See if you can't get leagle sh1tehawks involved...................is there anyone responsible for site safety? or is it all lawcourt stuff, as you guys seem to go in for? We have very strict laws about safety over here which makes things a lot easier.

Also your "financial analyst" colleague...................please make him aware of the law regarding "reckless indifference" and ask him that if "push comes to shove" will it be him who gets the prime time with "bubba" or his boss? that does sometimes focus their minds? Make it very clear to him that it will NOT be you :D

I might be a few days late on my reply to this thread, but have a few things I would like to add.

I'm not sure what your budget is with your DC, but what most DC's implement in their DC to help with the cold/hot thing is the following.

Every Isle is the servers back to back

So when your walking an isle on your left and right side are the back sides of the server. At the end of that isle you have a Air Cooling unit that sucks air into it then cools it and shoots it back out. This will help getting air away from your servers.

This means you will have air conditioners basically in your Server room, however getting a water detection cable and strategically placing it around the perimiter of the DC floor and by the AC units will help you to guard against water.



As far as a Fire suppresion system, I recommend a Gas called FM 200..read more about it here
http://www.fireline.com/fl_fm200firesuppression.html

Its odorless, leaves no residue, and you can be in the same room if it goes off.


Also, one other suggestion.

On your wire racks for the Fiber and Ethernet cables, you will be far happier if you puti n wireing racks that have holes in them..that will allow you to run a cable out of the rack to a server anywhere rather than having to wait to a hole thats cut in the rack at a pre-determined point by the manafacturer.