Is Your Building Ready for a Modern Data Center?

Data centers built in the 1970s on up to the 1990s might be big enough in square footage to support today’s optimized data centers [2]. But facilities for mainframe and client-server farms might not be right in other respects for the virtualized, agile, flexible and service-oriented data centers of today.

An organization might need to rebuild (or build) a whole new housing for its optimized data center.

Experts say a modern facility would do well to have in place (or plan to acquire) the following characteristics:

• Scalable electrical services that can change to match the blade and storage pool densities in the data center
• Revamped raised flooring that accommodates not only traditional wiring, but also works as a plenum for air exchange in cooling systems (Plus, flooring must be able to support the concentrated weight of multiblade racks. Older data center designs planned for more distributed weight.)
• Targeted lighting systems support the ability to read information on components from both sides of a rack and can automatically dim and then switch on and off to maximize power usage (The standard fluorescent panels in the dropped ceilings of yesteryear are inadequate in an optimized data center.)

For more tips and information on data center optimization, download our Data Center Optimization reference guide [3].