Data Center Site Selection Criteria

Now a days data center plays the most crucial and vital role irrespective to business segment. The cost of data center downtime has increased significantly for companies in the last three years, according to results of a recent study by Ponemon Institute published on February 1, 2011, sponsored by Emerson Network Power. Read the study report: "Cost of Data Center Outages: Sponsored by Emerson Network Power"

Research indicates "data center outages have serious financial consequences for an organization. According to the study, the cost of a data center outage ranges from a minimum cost of $38,969 to a maximum of $1,017,746 per organization, with an overall average cost of $505,502 per incident."

Actual cost of downtime in these days would be much more than the above calculation. Could you ever imagine if Amazon went down for a minute just before eve of Christmas or New Year or Alibaba had an interruption for a minute before Chinese New Year? I am sure that you need a large scientific calculator to compute this. 

According to the above study report, 37% of the unplanned outages occurred related to site or location. Thus data center site selection is one of the major decision that a management should take. There are several criterion for selecting site for your future business. Depending your choice, your business might be bloomed or doomed.

Selection criteria can be divided into below broad categories:

• Potential Natural Hazardous Area

• Potential Man-made Hazardous Area

• Proximity Evaluation

• Building Evaluation

For selecting a site, Potential Natural Hazardous Area should be avoided for below reasons:

•       Lightning

•       Flooding

•       Typhoon

•       Forest Fires

•       Seismic Prone Area

Sometimes Man-made Hazardous Area also impacts data center overall performance, thus should be avoided.

•       Flight path

•       Tunnels, lakes

•       Train/airport

•       RF towers

•       Power distribution network

•       Industrial pollution

Proximity Evaluation is one of the premier selection norm for selecting site.

•       Emergency Services e.g. Fire, Police, Medical Facilities

•       neighborhood

•       Public transport and public roads

•       High risk targets e.g. Embassies, Govt. Building, Power Stations, Radio/TV Station

And lastly Building Evaluation is required for below reason:

•       Rent/Buy/Build

•       History of the building and/or area (flood, fire etc.)

•       National building code

•       24x7 access

•       Level/floor within the building

•       Space required/ potential expansion

•       Floor loading capacity

•       Slab to slab height (min. 3.8meter)

•       Power Capabilities: Redundancy & Capacity

•       Network Capabilities: Redundancy & Diversity

•       External Supply Capabilities

•       Utility duct

•       Secured perimeter

•       Grounding space

•       Standby generator, external generator provision

•       Delivery of heavy/big equipment's and route to data center

Don't forget your prime selection criteria which is your Budget, Budget, & Budget!!

References:

• Cost of Data Center Outages Sponsored by Emerson Network Power
• EPI Data Center Framework