How 'critical' is your data center?
Jerry Burkhardt and Richard W. Dennis, Contributors
Negative implications of unplanned
downtime are certainly chief concerns for every business. But often
overlooked is the fact that no two downtime incidents are the same. One
data center's momentary inconvenience could be another's demise.
For this reason, it is crucial to classify the
criticality of each facility, which requires an understanding that the
vulnerability of an organization is directly attributed to the weakest
link in its chain. A wide range of relevant factors including HVAC and
electrical systems, facility security, IT infrastructure maintenance
and operations and disaster preparedness must be incorporated to ensure
the reliability of the facility and its data center.
Assessing the availability and reliability of a business's critical
facility using the aptly named Criticality Levels concept is useful for
existing facilities and during the design process. This helps to select
the proper components that complement the critical mission of the
facility and safeguard its data center against downtime.
Below is an example of how these criticality levels can be determined:
C1 – Facilities supporting routine local office
processes that are not backed up regularly. The loss of function could
result in diminished productivity. However, the facility can achieve
simple and rapid recovery from unplanned downtime.
C2– Facilities supporting critical business processes
that are both local and remote. The loss of availability for a C2
facility could widely affect productivity. Full recovery after
momentary unplanned downtime can potentially take hours. Maintenance
downtime can be regularly scheduled. C3– Back-up corporate facilities supporting and/or
including critical business processes. The loss of availability widely
affects productivity and directly affects customers. Full recovery
after momentarily unplanned downtime can take hours or even days.
Maintenance during low-risk windows can be scheduled monthly or
quarterly.
C4– Primary corporate facilities that support and/or
include critical business processes. The loss of availability widely
affects productivity and directly affects customers. Full recovery
after momentarily unplanned downtime can take hours or even days.
Online maintenance with moderate risk windows can be scheduled monthly
or quarterly with blackout periods, and maintenance shutdown is
extremely difficult to schedule.
C5– Primary corporate facilities supporting and/or
including core business processes. The loss of availability directly
translates to the facility's bottom line. Full recovery after momentary
unplanned downtime can take days to possibly weeks. Online maintenance
with low-risk windows can be scheduled quarterly or annually with
blackout periods. Maintenance shutdown cannot be scheduled.
C6– Large corporate data centers supporting and/or
including core business processes and are, typically, a network of
remote data centers that work together. The loss of availability poses
widespread circumstances that can affect national security and public
safety. Full recovery after momentary downtime can take weeks to months
and all maintenance must be performed online and must be extremely
low-risk. C7 and beyond– Future levels for continued growth and evolution of the critical facility.
Enabling facility planners and IT directors to assess the importance
and level of quality needed for various external components, such as
standby power, security, IT configuration and IT redundancy is the
primary purpose for these definitions. For example, a C6 facility such
as a large corporate data center must have significantly more IT
redundancy than a C1 facility that is simply supporting office
processes.
When facility designers understand the level of criticality,
combined with an assessment of all of the external components
supporting its operations, they are enabled to provide the needed
flexibility, redundancy and security to support the organization's
critical mission.
About the authors:
Jerry Burkhardt is the P.E. and vice president of
commissioning services at Syska Hennessy Group. He has over 21 years of
specialized experience in critical and live environments.
Richard Dennis is the P.E. and vice president of national
commissioning services for Syska Hennessy Group. He has over 30 years
of professional engineering experience in design management,
construction, and facility operations.
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This was first published in October 2006