Data Center Journal

VOLUME 50 | JUNE 2017

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28 | THE DATA CENTER JOURNAL www.datacenterjournal.com BeSt practiceS for mopS aNd SopS Although every data center-pro- vider maintains a list of best practices, an active infrastructure-monitoring platform is essential for every data center to implement. is smart system monitors the status for power, cooling, network performance and security (such as DDoS attacks, power usage, temperature readings, camera failures and so on). If any of these environments change their operating mode or if action is needed, an alert is sent to the operators, who respond as necessary. Active monitoring en- sures that operators have 100 percent operability and prevents downtime for customers. Other best practices, MOPs and SOPs include: • Full-load generator testing—used to ensure proper operation of the generator at full-rated load capac- ity and to prevent wet stacking from unloaded testing and from running the engine at low idle. Providers should perform this test- ing quarterly. • Fuel sampling and polishing— tanks should be sampled annually and polished to remove water, impurities and sediment. • Short-circuit coordination study—performed to ensure proper circuit-breaker coordina- tion, which helps limit faults. • ermal imaging—conducted annually; every accessible electrical connection along the distribution path should be scanned to prevent failure due to faulty installation, overutilization or end-of-life equipment. • Integrated systems testing—data centers should undergo a planned simulation of utility-power un- availability to test the response of every component of the emergency power system. is test ensures that irregularities are discovered while working in a controlled envi- ronment as opposed to a real-time utility power failure. • Cooling-tower and coil clean- ing—all chilled-water plants and glycol-supplied condensers and dry coolers should undergo an in- spection and coil cleaning (at least semiannually) to actively ensure full heat-rejection capacity during operation. • Underfloor cleaning—all data centers built using raised flooring should undergo a subfloor cleaning between the raised floor tiles and base flooring. Doing so ensures air moving through the computer- room air conditioners (CRAC) is free of contaminants. witH miSSioN-critical data, certificatioNS are crucial Along with best practices, data centers should implement the proper industry standards and acquire ap- propriate certifications to demonstrate that they have resilient security and processes in place. It's important that data centers implement operational- effectiveness standards when handling mission-critical customer data. A few standards to consider include the following: • SSAE 16 Type II—governs inter- nal controls over financial report- ing. e Type II report includes the design and testing of controls to report on the operational ef- fectiveness of these controls over time. • SOC 2 Type II—governs internal controls over operations, such as physical and environmental secu- rity. It reports on controls relevant to security, availability, process- ing integrity, confidentiality and privacy. • ISO/IEC 27001—the most widely accepted certification for informa- tion-security controls. rough a continuously improved risk-man- agement framework, it ensures that the appropriate people, processes, policies and technologies are in place to detect and defend against data-system vulnerabilities. • HIPAA/HITECH—sets national standards for the privacy and se- curity of electronic patient health information. ese standards ensure that data centers implement and adhere to all physical, network and process-security measures related to protected health-care information. • PCI DSS 3.1—a worldwide se- curity standard assembled by the Payment Card Industry Security Standards Council. e standard was created to help organizations that process credit-card payments to prevent fraud by instituting controls on data and its exposure to risk. Although keeping a data center up and running smoothly requires numerous steps, implementing a set of standard procedures and having the right compliances in place can help ease tasks. Standardization becomes even more fundamental when work- ing with data center facilities across several regions or even oceans. Data center equilibrium is possible when compliances, the right team, and MOPs and SOPs all align. n about the author: John Longo is Director, Operations East Region, vXchnge

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