Disaster Recovery Journal

maintain certain devices in the network differently than others, and if so, why? How do they react to impactful software bugs that are found? What is their QA process to validate new software and/or configurations before deploying these to the network?

 Communications Best Practices

Command and control are essential in managing any crisis. You should be prepared to notify all affected parties of any potential business-impacting event as well as to give timely, detailed updates throughout.

It’s also a good idea to house your network operations centers (NOC) in geographically separate, redundant locations and have them staffed 24x7x365 so that all relevant employees or customers can be kept apprised of any situation that might affect their business. In the event of a disaster, the NOC becomes the focal point for both internal and customer communications, ensuring timely, accurate, and ongoing updates regarding any event that may be occurring in data centers around the country. Geographically disparate NOCs provide the redundancy to maintain a network should one facility fail within an event that impacts an entire region.

The site data center operations team should notify the NOC quickly – ideally within 15 minutes of an event – and provide timely updates via systems like email, SMS, and conference bridges, among other methods. In addition, the NOC should have the ability to monitor the data center’s BMS (Building Monitoring System) so NOC engineers have first-hand knowledge of equipment alarms that may be occurring. The integration of BMS with the NOC, the conference bridge for real time communications, and cell phones with SMS capabilities provided to all site operations personnel provide a strong foundation for disaster communications.

Ensure that you can facilitate effec-
tive communications during an event via
a clear chain of command, a solid plan
for keeping all audiences up to date,
and published escalation procedures.
Be prepared to answer detailed “who,
what, when, where, why, and how”
questions. Documenting a detailed log
of events will be extremely useful for
a “post-mortem” discussion after the
event.

 The Right People!

Do you have the highly trained and skilled people needed to operate your complex equipment? Do you invest in ongoing employee education, including industry-recognized certifications? Do you have deep expertise not just in facilities management, but other critical areas such as IP networking, telecoms, and customer support? Do you collaborate with peers across the enterprise and discuss best practices? Do you have internal leadership teams where ideas can be discussed and best practices identified that can be implemented across your portfolio of facilities?

These are all critical questions to ask before you find yourself in the midst of a disaster. Skilled data center engineers should be complemented with facility engineers who are trained in electrical and mechanical disciplines and carry licenses and equipment certifications. One final consideration regarding local disasters is that your employees’ homes and families may be affected, thus preventing them from getting to the facility. A back-up staffing plan should be in place to address this issue.

With the right people and the right processes, you will be better prepared in the event of a disaster scenario. After committing to design, planning, testing, maintenance, communications, and people, you can assure your organization and/or your customers that you’re positioned to support their business – no matter what disaster may be on the horizon.

v

Bill Brown is director of data center operations at Internap, overseeing the company’s data centers around the world, including day-to-day operations and customer support, facilities engineering,

critical infrastructure maintenance, physical security, and other related site services. Brown has more than 30 years of experience in technology, real estate, facilities management, business development, and corporate services.

Automated

Storage
Tiering
and SSDs

Key Technologies for Today’s Enterprise Datacenters

By GALVAN CHANG

In enterprise data centers, the focus of IT managers is evolving from pursuingthelatesttechnologiesand resources to ensuring that exist- ing available resources are used most efficiently. By optimizing efficiency, enterprises can better protect their investments and ensure they achieve a high return on investment (ROI).

This renewed focus on efficiency has been partly generated by the tough economic climate over the past few years, with enterprises being more careful in terms of how they spend their money. In addition, a new generation of storage technologies has emerged that make these efficiency enhancements possible. Examples include data deduplication, which generates considerable storage space savings by removing duplicate data copies, and thin provisioning, which offers dynamic, on-demand capacity provisioning that eliminates pre-allocated but unused data volumes that were prevalent in traditional data centers.