Operating Data Center

Running Head: OPERATING DATA CENTER 1

OPERATING DATA CENTER 5

Operating Data Center

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Course: Cloud Computing

October 26, 2020

There is an attached high costs of operating an IT data center as Jamsa (2013) notes. However, there are five capabilities that must be utilized to offset it.

Efficiency in Space and Capacity Planning

It should be noted that the best data centers are designed to achieve optimal density. They should make use of virtualization technology to offer the most compute, storage and networking power. Imperatively, increasing the number of servers per rack, data centers can decrease the number of racks and power circuits to reduce capital expenses and improve utilization of existing hardware something noted by DeCusatis (2017).

Scalability/Flexibility

When it comes to the flexibility capability, data centers must provide a flexible infrastructure that has the capability to seamlessly support simple and quick upgrades and sustain a rapid growth in performance. These systems should allow businesses to conveniently address and adapt to growth and other changing business conditions without major disruptions. These systems must also be simple to create and scale applications (Uzaman et al., 2019).

Cooling Efficiency

The system should also be able to cool itself through a cooling infrastructure that is installed in place. Methods such as the hot or cold aisle architecture should be used to reduce energy consumption for cooling. This provides the ability to pack equipment together more densely and increase the life of components in racks by assuring inlet air temperatures are within global standards. As a consequence, this makes a big difference in a data center’s energy efficiency.

Documentation, Planning and Procedures

Further, it should be noted that successful data centers have well-documented methods and procedures. This is complimented by activity monitoring and controls to ensure policies are followed. There should be training of staff in terms of adherence to standards, communication, collaboration and continuous improvement to ensure operational effectiveness, quality of service, and mitigate risk and improve performance (Abbasi et al., 2019). The information should be readily accessible, well-organized and available to the data center staff.

Security

Finally, a data center must be capable of properly documenting methods and procedures to ensure the multi-level security of mission-critical facilities. This will ultimately prevent unauthorized access. Things like building construction, perimeter protection, adaptable design with secure cabinets or caged environments and other multi-tier access control measures that may include, biometrics, monitoring of security and video surveillance with adequate archiving all ensure the data center is secure (Jamsa, 2013).

As a final note, without these capabilities, the data center would not be able to save the cost of an on premise data center that requires constant maintenance, power and cooling to support the IT equipment. Without the capabilities, then the benefits of the data center investment would not be derived or seen.

References

Abbasi, A. A., Abbasi, A., Shamshirband, S., Chronopoulos, A. T., Persico, V., & Pescapè, A. (2019). Software-defined cloud computing: A systematic review on latest trends and developments. IEEE Access, 7, 93294-93314.

DeCusatis, C. (2017). Data center architectures. In Optical Interconnects for Data Centers (pp. 3-41). Woodhead Publishing.

Jamsa, K. (2013). Cloud computing: SaaS, PaaS, IaaS, virtualization, business models, mobile, security and more. Jones & Bartlett Publishers.

Uzaman, S. K., Shuja, J., Maqsood, T., Rehman, F., & Mustafa, S. (2019). A systems overview of commercial data centers: initial energy and cost analysis. International Journal of Information Technology and Web Engineering (IJITWE), 14(1), 42-65.