RE: Re: Datacenter Classification

[Sean Donelan <sean@donelan.com>]

On Tue, 8 Jan 2002, Dan Lawrence wrote:
> Having spent a larger than should have been part of my last decade in the
> datacenter, computer center, and other such mission critical type facilities
> and infrastructure projects,  I would have to agree pretty much across the
> board with Roeland.  A Class "A" datacenter, by most accounts and without
> going directly to a published standard as the Holy Grail, is probably best
> determined by a Reliability Index (number of those elusive 9's everybody
> chases) as a result of meeting some performance criteria laid down by an
> Owner (like Beenu).  If the end result can give a consistent high five-9's,
> it's usually considered a Class "A" design.

Data center owners are reluctant to talk about problems, so its relatively
difficult to find out the performance of various designs.  And if you ask
any sales person, they always tell you their data center is designed for
x-9's.

Honestly, has anyone every had a sales person tell them they are selling
"Class B" data center space?

> What seems to be the most forgotten, though, is the need to address ALL
> areas of the installation, not just the physical structure and the
> power/HVAC systems.  Such things as architectural and physical security,
> fire suppression and backup fire water, redundancy in systems work as
> defined along the lines of "N + something from 1 on up, adjacency to
> thoroughfares, adjacency to high voltage lines and in what orientation to
> the buildings, relative position on the local diesel fuel deliverer's
> importance list, airport flight path issues, grounding and lightning
> protection systems, etc., etc., etc.

True, see http://www.donelan.com/design/general.html for some of the
topics you need to address.