Data Center Knowledge does a great job of aggregating the downtime woes that continue to manifest in ways that should or could have been addressed.

There continues to be a lesson learned from decades of computing infrastructure knowledge that stubbornly refuses to translate into a lesson remembered.

Lesson Learned: Diversity Defeats Downtime

Within the data center, diversity principles include:

• Load Balancers that spread traffic to different servers
• Diverse power feeds to equipment
• Diverse network feeds to equipment

Geographic diversity means having the ability to run services or at least the ability to re-direct services to other data centers.

• No excuses for failing to diversify your external and internal DNS. Without a way to access your DNS records and re-direct your e-mail and web destinations, you are at the mercy of your provider should a service interruption strike.
• No excuses for failing to diversify your e-mail. You need to be able to send and receive e-mail during a major service interruption.
• No excuses for failing to have a Business Continuity Plan. As the downtime stories continue to illustrate, key elements of your plan need to include what you are going to do when your infrastructure is overwhelmed.

Business Continuity Planning (BCP) is a rigorous approach to ensuring your business can continue to operate in the event of an unplanned outage. Despite all the attention to BCP, the lesson of Geographic Diversity continues to be a lesson learned but a lesson not remembered.

A transformer explosion at hosting company, The Planet in Houston,  on May 31, 2008 forced the company to take the entire facility offline until tests could be completed to allow the generators to supply power. This meant 9,000 servers were without power.

It simply is no longer sufficient to utilize a single location for your operations even if you have made that single location highly available.

If you can remember only one lesson in Geographic Diversity, remember to diversify your DNS at another location.

Attention to business resumption would lead you to conclude you need to do more than just provide for DNS diversity. Colorado is uniquely positioned to provide data centers that are geographically diverse from most locations in North America. While the debate continues about the required separation between data centers, consider there are 9,000 servers without power at a Houston data center. If some of them had geographic diversity even a few miles away, those businesses could have resumed their operations.

Many organizations fail to plan properly for the post-move phase. Circuits and facilities need to be decommissioned, rapid response teams need to be ready to resolve unforeseen problems, and executive management needs to provide the proper budget to this phase so that staff is not stretched to the breaking point.

Executives need to be aware that during this phase is often where they lose the most staff. This happens for a number of reasons including staff who believes they did not receive the proper recognition for their efforts during the move to those who were going to leave anyway. You need a post-move plan that goes beyond technology and addresses the organizational issues that a move uncovers.

The first step is to evaluate each individual on the likelihood of departure versus the impact to your organization. Performing this retention risk analysis prior to moving can help you retain the individuals who have the largest positive impact to your organization’s success.

As reported by Rich Miller at DataCenterKnowlege, forward-thinking Regional Economic Development Agencies are focusing on attracting large data center projects. The debate continues on the real economic impact after accounting for tax incentives and infrastructure improvements given the relatively small amount of jobs these large footprint data centers create. What many economic development agencies may not realize is that there are many more data center-related jobs at stake than the mega-projects most often reported in the media.

We move data centers of all sizes. Most data center moves are a result of a larger corporate relocation project which means jobs of many types will follow the data center move…not just the jobs to keep the data center running. What can economic development agencies do to highlight their region’s strengths?

1. Package Your Infrastructure - Power, Fiber, and Transportation needs to be readily available to the advance teams for evaluation.
2. Assess Your Available Inventory for Data Center Readiness - Your region can be quickly eliminated because you can’t provide an inventory of available properties that answer fundamental data center questions. Items such as existing data center raised floor height, generators, proximity to fiber paths, are but a few of the items a relocation team wants to know. Most commercial listing agents have no idea what type of data center space exists in their inventories.
3. Pre-form a Welcome Team - Advance evaluation teams get on airplanes to have a look. You can increase your odds with a multi-disciplinary Welcome Team to guide their evaluators and answer their questions. If you stuff this team with local politicos and Realtors, you’re missing an opportunity to put technical experts in front of the advance relocation evaluation teams.
4. Don’t Just Sit There - You can build all the FAQ pages, marketing collateral, and databases you want, but assuming a corporate relocation team is going to find you is a bad bet. Seek creative ways to let others know about your area including us. Send your information to dcmove@e-oasis.com. Also consider industry-specific conferences and trade shows to highlight your area.

Contact us to inquire about how we can help you with your Regional Economic Development efforts related to data center moves. We have a number of innovative services that can help you understand and attract organizations who relocate their data centers.

Many data center or computer room moves are often part of a larger corporate relocation. In the early decision-making process, a judgment is made to determine the feasibility of the move and the cost. The computer room or data center expenses can often be an after-thought.

In the rush to get to a budget number, executive management is left without a realistic view of the costs in money, time, and internal resources. Setting an unrealistic expectation means the proper lead-time, coordination, and notification may be inadequate.

Just how do you calculate your moving expenses for a relocation?

Any suggestions you find with a Google search will be limited in the scope and depth of detail and are likely to leave you wanting more. Every relocation is different and those differences loom large in your relocation cost budget. Pressure to “get me some numbers” often results in missing important details.

Step 1 - Document your relocation assumptions.

Step 2 - Don’t grab someone else’s move template from the web, build your own because your relocation details are important.

Step 3 - Get an outside assessment of your move template to ensure you haven’t missed entire categories or important details.

Step 4 - Estimate or get quotes for your move categories. Separate the technical elements from the furniture and facilities and assign the technical elements to technical experts (not move coordinators). Don’t make the mistake of relying on Google searches for normalized costs such as per square foot numbers or average cost for a data center relocation.

Step 5 - Vary your assumptions and determine that effect on the costs you obtained in Step 4.

Step 6 - Add contingency to your range of costs you obtained in Step 5.

Step 7 - Now you are ready to present a realistic expense estimate for your relocation.

Most data center move planning often overlooks the topic of acclimation. Your equipment has likely been powered on for years with spinning disks and CPU’s operating at high temperatures inside a closed environment. When this equipment is powered off, it typically is rushed out the door and “shrink-wrapped” on the way to the moving truck. During transit, the equipment then undergoes both temperature and humidity changes. Upon arrival, the natural tendency is to power everything up as soon as possible to avoid downtime. This rush can have undesired consequences with both obvious and unexplained equipment failures.

Acclimating the equipment to the new environment before powering it on is a step often overlooked. Out of ignorance or because it costs downtime to let equipment sit, many organizations unwisely skip this step. Condensation often forms as a result of temperature and humidity changes and that condensation can take 48 hours or more to dissipate.

Many equipment manufacturers do not properly address acclimation either giving no guidance on time-frames or giving ridiculously long acclimation times. Use common sense. Use climate-controlled trucks where you need to minimize the acclimation time during transit. Use extra care where you have older, spinning disks that have not been powered off for a long time. Require your vendors of special equipment to document in writing their recommended acclimation times.

Above all, program adequate time in your relocation project plan to acclimate your equipment after transit. Data Center Relocation Best Practices always include acclimation in the data center move procedures as a way to control unexpected equipment mortalities during the data center move.

It’s no secret that the transmission grid is the weak link in power delivery to industrial and large commercial customers. Dual transmission feeds, expensive primary-side UPS systems and backup generators are common solutions for data centers. But large customers wanting power diversity to their location discover that footing the bill for transmission improvements is no bargain.

To learn more, I interviewed Damian Berger, Senior Electrical Engineer at Peak Power Engineering, Inc. who has researched wind energy and transmission issues in the West.

What gives Wyoming an edge with power transmission capacity in the West?

Wyoming is moving forward with plans to reinforce the transmission grid. In 2004, the Wyoming legislature established the Wyoming Infrastructure Authority (WIA), and, with $1 billion in bonding authority, commissioned the WIA to “participate in planning, financing, constructing, developing, acquiring,maintaining and operating electric transmission facilities and their supporting infrastructure.” The creation of the WIA was not an empty gesture. To date, four transmission expansion projects are underway with the support of the WIA.

Four? Give us a sense of the timelines required to get a transmission project off the ground to understand the magnitude of having four projects underway.

Transmission line projects can take two or more years to complete. The process begins with feasibility studies. Because the transmission grid is an interconnected system, the studies can be complicated, with multiple transmission owners being involved. Public interest and environmental concerns can significantly impact route selection. If conflicts arise, a project’s timeline can easily double.

Other states seem to be going in a different direction?

While policy makers are busy trying to provide incentive for utilities to upgrade the transmission system, Wyoming is doing what existing transmission owners are reluctant to do: take the necessary risks to increase delivery capacity. The payoff will be big. With the #1 ranked wind energy resources in the nation, interest in purchasing future transmission capacity already outweighs concrete plans to build infrastructure. Transmission owners in Wyoming are also moving forward with upgrade plans, but their process is necessarily slower.

Wind energy generation clearly benefits from this transmission capacity, are there other effects?

Not only do new transmission lines increase capacity, but they make the local grid more reliable and less vulnerable to outages. Some organizations are already taking notice of Wyoming’s potential. With $20 million in direct funding from Wyoming, the National Center for Atmospheric Research (NCAR) will build the world’s fastest supercomputer in Cheyenne, Wyoming. And the Wyoming legislature and governor are eager to attract more developers to the state with grant money earmarked specifically for data centers.

Any predictions on wind’s contribution to the greening of data centers?

Wind power is probably the first thing that comes to mind when talking about green power. Did you know, however, that the benefits of wind power are often offset by the long distance transmission from the wind farm to the consuming load center? Transmission and distribution system losses should not be overlooked in the green power equation. Having large loads in close proximity to abundant energy resources, including wind, is more cost effective and energy efficient than shipping power over large distances through the power grid.

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Writing a Statement of Work (SOW) for a Data Center Relocation can be a daunting task. Has your Google search for an example to jump start your efforts left you frustrated?

While there are entire books on the process of writing a good SOW, you likely don’t have the time to read them. Worse, they don’t include the kind of details you’d like for the data center move.

What are the Minimal SOW Elements?

You’ll need these minimum elements in every Statement of Work:

• Define the Scope
• Define the Deliverables
• Define the Timeline and Period of Performance
• Define the Evaluation Criteria
• Define the Reporting Requirements
• Add your Terms and Conditions

What Data Center Relocation Elements should you include?

You can appreciate that without knowing your specific details, it is impossible to capture the critical details that would make your move successful. Be sure and have your SOW peer reviewed before releasing it to your Vendors. Here are some questions to help you get specific for your project:

• What are the origin and destination locations?
• What total square footage is in each location?
• How much equipment needs to be moved?
• What downtime is acceptable?
• What work is being done by your staff and what work do you want the vendor to do?
• Do you have a master move timeline?
• Do you have special equipment that needs to be moved?
• Do you need specific technical expertise?
• Do you have enough time to run a competitive process, or do you need to fast track and get a Vendor on-board quickly?

Is the Perfect SOW the answer?

A Data Center Relocation can be a complex undertaking. A well written statement of work is but one step in this complex journey. Ultimately, the success of your move depends on a number of critical elements — not the least of which is allowing enough time to plan your move.

Learn more about Data Center Moves with our Free Data Center Relocation guide.

The greening of the data center continues to grow in media popularity. In the rush to sell products and services that tie into the Green Buzz, there isn’t much common sense being applied to the problem.

1. As long as data centers continue to use the extremely inefficient method of air-side cooling, there will be no meaningful reduction in cooling costs. These costs can amount to more than 50% of the total energy expended in the data center.

2. You cannot claim to “Green” your own data center if you don’t measure the power you are consuming in the first place. Install an inexpensive sub-meter and link the CIO’s compensation to the improvements.

3. Virtualization alone is not a greening strategy. First hand experience shows that IT (Information Technology) staff rarely retires a machine that’s been replaced…they just repurpose it. What is the financial incentive to retire a capital asset before its depreciation is realized? It simply is not being done. Virtualization, which stands on its own for benefits, will actually accentuate the energy usage in the short term.

4. Congress is probably more interested in taxing the Internet Economy than in saving electricity. Data Centers are convenient targets since other efforts at taxation have failed. Additionally, the movement towards a carbon footprint based tax continues to gain momentum and the EPA report is one of many strategies to further this objective. Watch for more from Congress as it build its case for taxation and look for increased industry realization of these effects.

5. Does it strike anyone else that if data centers consume 1.5% of the energy as the EPA report states, then there is some serious work missing on the other 98.5% of the consumption? For starters, how much energy is being wasted because Corporate America leaves their desktops powered on with the power-saving modes completely bypassed? Perhaps we might collectively consider the entire issue of consumption where data centers represent one small component?

6.Energy efficiency ahead of the meter is often overlooked. Shouldn’t the power losses from generation to the data center be factored into the green data center equation? Energy efficiency can be increased as much as 5% by placing load near generation. Why? Because all utilities factor transmission line loss into their rates. That means you pay for the electricity you use plus the electricity it takes in the form of transmission loss to get the energy to you. Locating closer to generation capability is a greener option.

I received a suggestion that I publish a revision to our guide with a new title “The Green Guide to Data Center Moving” supported by the idea that moving a data center is a good time to virtualize it.

While it sounds like a clever way to ride the “Green Wave”, the counter argument is that by the time an organization is moving their data center, they’ve likely already made the common data center design mistakes in their new facility. Until someone repeals the laws of thermodynamics, building a new data center with air-side cooling is the costliest mistake they can make if they want a green data center.

Our updated version of our free data center moving guide will be out in a few months with the same boring title, but it might be useful to include some Big Green Myths.

In the meantime, expect the services and products riding the Big Green Wave to continue to enjoy the surf.