Data Center Assessment

Introduction

Data Center Assessment is needed to make sure there is no business impact due to any unforeseen problem encountered in near future. Also data center is following most or some of best practices recommended for active data center. Data Center is not only efficient but also secure enough to take care of organization business.

Criteria for General Assessment

Data Center assessment main caters to four major areas: Facilities, Technology, Procedure and Staff. It broadly covers all aspects of Data Center model. Following section highlights topics covered under each area.

Criteria	Topics
Facilities	Access control and security, it refers to physical security to facility Protected zones and fire control Raised floors Position in the building Facility feedings Scalability Structure of the building Cleanliness of the data center
Technology	Transformer / Main distribution for medium and low voltage Power supplier AC and DC power supply Emergency power supply, emergency shutdown, lightning protection Air conditioning and air filtration Temperature and humidity Carrier for connectivity to outside world.
Procedure	ITIL conformity Continuity management Existing certifications Access procedure Data security
Staff	Staff size Multilingual staff Accessibility and availability Qualifications Quality management

Approach for Data Center Assessment

As mentioned in previous section, Assessment covers study of all areas related to Data Center and its business model. Hence it is evident to break down study in to smaller domains and prepare assessment questionnaires for each domain/area.

Sample Questionnaire for Servers and Storage Assessment:

• Total number of Servers HP/IBM/Dell etc residing at this data center
• Total Number of services run from Datacenter
• Operating Systems and Applications running on the Mainframes residing at this data center.
• Total Number of Full Time Engineers (FTE) that supports the administration, maintenance, and failover/recovery of all mainframes residing at this data center:
• Total disk space used for all storages residing at this data center: Total Terabytes
• Total disk space available for all storages residing at this data center: Total Terabytes
• Total floor space for all mainframes residing at this data center: Total Sq. Feet
• Total tape storage capacity used for storage services residing at this data center: Total Terabytes
• Total tape storage capacity available for mainframe services residing at this data center: Total Terabytes
• Total floor space used for all tape storage libraries at this data center: Total Sq. Feet
• Any current plans or schedules to upgrade or retire the mainframe(s) residing at this data center.
• Data Backup is taken offsite or onsite only.
• Does Disaster Recovery Data Center exist?
• What is Business Continuity Plan Policy?

Few questions. You should come up with detailed questionnaire with client together all needed information.

Audits for Data Center Assessment:

It is advised and required to perform internal and external periodic audits for the data center. It provides you details of how good or bad you are. There are some industry standards and certifications which can be achieved by having data center designed and operating as per guidelines. These certifications can also help you to show case it to clients about your Data center’s commitment toward business.

Data Center Star Audit-eco (eco-DCSA) is example of such star ratings for data centers.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Datacenter_star_audit

Conclusion

Your Assessment plan for data center shall adhere to guidelines to ensure the superior resiliency, performance, and agility that enterprise networks now require. The Data Center Assessment can help you to:

• Identify data center improvements that can help you cost-effectively increase your data center’s efficiency, scalability, and agility.

• Increase resource availability, so you can deploy applications faster and enhance the return on your network investment

• Create a next-generation data center enhancement plan that can help you evolve your data center to meet your long-term goals.