5 tips to protect your data center hardware

July 15, 2009 by
Filed under: Data Center, environmental monitoring, humidity monitoring, power monitoring, temperature monitoring, water leak monitoring 

Sever MessI work with network administrators everyday and I hear one common story. They are not buying servers. The IDC’s Worldwide Quarterly Server Tracker supports me on this. Server vendors are reporting that their business is off 24.5 percent from last year, falling to $9.9 billion in the first quarter of 2009.

They don’t have the budget or can’t get the budget to update their aging equipment. So, what can these admins do to extend the life of their equipment?

Just like an older automobile, maintenance and proper care of the equipment can easily extend your equipment’s life. Constant monitoring of your system inside and out can save you from loosing mission critical servers. Environmental monitors like the temperature and humidity, airflow, smoke and water sensors can be used to make sure that the environment that your systems operate in are the best they can be.

Now, I know what you are saying, “Jim’s just a salesman and wants you to buy something.” Although I might get excited about a product and preach its goodness, I am not a sales person . I might dream of being the star of a Shamtastic infomercial, but trust me, I’m not. What I do want you to know, is that there are some simple things that you can to to help save your hardware.

  • Your server room is not a storage area! If it is, it really shouldn’t be. Extra stuff in the room can cause heat issues and possibly be a fire hazard. Keep the area clean and free of obstacles.
  • Manage your cables properly. I had a boss who had a hang up on making sure the all cables were organized correctly. You guessed it, I didn’t think it was all that important. In hindsight, I was wrong. Keeping them organized is great for physical management, but more importantly, it makes it easier to manage airflow. Be it a cable tunnel or just pulling them together with a zip tie, making sure your servers get the correct ventilation is important.
  • Have a physical maintenance window for your machines. It might bring you back to youthful A+ days, but making sure the servers are dust free  and cables are in the correct place can help immensely.
  • Monitor the servers health with an SNMP Trending app. Most servers can give you CPU, Server Temp, Fan Info and other valuable information, via a simple SNMP walk. A SNMP trending application, like Denika,  will allow you to gather historical information on this data and alert on it.
  • Monitor your environment.  As I mentioned before, monitoring the room temp, humidity and airflow will make your admin life a lot easier.  If you have some room in your budget, this might be the best way to spend it.

So there it is.  I guess the old saying, “An ounce of prevention is worth a pound of cure,” is correct. Even in today’s super digital world!

- Jimmy D

Related posts:

  1. 5 tips for an energy-efficient data center
  2. 3 Tips for Data Center Security
  3. Simple Ways To Make Your Server Room Green
  4. Running a computer in a sub-zero environment
  5. Using SensorProbes to prove the office temperature is too low.

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Comments

  • http://www.ravica.com/blog/data-center/sever-room-environment-moderated-by-mother-nature/ Server Room Environment Moderated by Mother Nature : Ravica Blog

    [...] So, until the future comes, I suggest using your very own Ravica environmental sensor probes to monitor the temperature and humidity in your server room, and to follow these five steps to protect hardware in your data center. [...]