DCK Executive Guide to Data Center Design

Data center designs have varied widely, especially over the last several years. Originally data center designs focused primarily on reliability and availability, with little regard to energy usage or long term sustainability. As energy costs rose and operating efficiency gained more importance, a variety of technologies and designs were used in data centers that were previously not considered feasible.

This article series is the sixth in a series of guides, and reviews some of the major factors in the design and construction of a data center that have been discussed in previous editions, such as; ”Build vs Buy”, “Total Cost of Ownership” and “Energy Efficiency.”

This series of articles will examine some of the classic design adaptations and new data center design adopted to meet the paradigm shift underway in the computing landscape, as businesses strive to meet the challenges driven by evolving IT architecture, Social Media, and Mobile Computing, as well as higher availability for Cloud services.

This last guide in the Executive Series is not just about the “nuts and bolts” (Uninterruptible power supplies, back-up generators and chiller plants, etc.) of the data center facility. While they are necessary to support the IT equipment and important elements of design process, they are the enablers, not the drivers of the design process.

If you are a denizen of the “C suite” (CEO, CIO, CTO, etc.) you are more likely to be concerned about meeting the challenges of facing globalized economies along with the ever increasing pressure to deliver competitive innovations and greater performance, yet while economically burdened to do so with less resources. You need to engage with customers by embracing mobile, social and big data analytics. While you will still need to rely on the experts who are intimately familiar with the “inner workings” that make up the data center, senior IT management must set the long term logical information systems direction that in turn drives the physical design criteria.

Here are the article that will follow over the coming days:

The complete Data Center Knowledge Executive Guide on Data Center Design is available in PDF complements of Digital Realty. Click here to download.