5 Ways to Increase your Data Center Uptime

A data center will not survive unless it can deliver an uptime of 99.9999%. Most of the customers are choosing the data center option to avoid any unexpected outage for them. Even a few seconds of downtime can have a huge impact on some customers. To avoid such types of issues there are several effective ways to increase data center uptime.

• Eliminate single points of failure

Always use HA for Hardware (Routers, Switches, Servers, power, DNS, and ISP) and also setup HA for applications. If any one of the hardware devices or application fails, we can easily move to a second server or hardware so we can avoid any unexpected downtime.

• Monitoring

The effective monitoring system will provide the status of each system and if anything goes wrong, we can easily failover to the second pair and then we can investigate faulty devices. This way datacenter Admin will be able to find any issues before the end-user report.

• Updating and maintenance

Keep all systems up to date and keep maintenance for all your device to avoid any security breach in the operating system. Also, keep your applications up to date. Planned maintenance is better than any unexpected downtime. Also, test all applications in a test lab to avoid any application-related issues before implementing them in the production environment.

• Ensure Automatic Failover

Automatic failover will always help any human errors like if we miss any notification in the monitoring system and that caused one of our application crash. Then if we have automatic failover, it will automatically move to available servers. Therefore, end-user will not notice any downtime for their end.

• Provide Excellent Support

Always we need to take care of our customers well. We need to be available 24/7 to help customers. We need to provide solutions faster and quick way so customers will not lose their valuable time spending with IT-related stuff.

How the Shift to Virtualization will impact Data Center Infrastructure?

Virtualization is the process of creating software-based (virtual) versions of computers, Storage, Networking, Servers, or Applications. It is super important when it comes to building a cloud computing strategy. This can be achieved using HYPERVISOR which is software that runs above the physical server or host. What HYPERVISIOR does is pool the resources from the physical servers and allocates them to the virtual environment which can be accessed by anyone who has access to it located anywhere in the world with an active internet connection.

Virtualization can be categorized into two different types:

1. Type 1: These are most frequently used which are directly installed on the top of the physical server. They are more secure, and latency is low which is highly required for best performance. Some commonly used examples are VMware ESXi, MS HYPER-V, KVM.
2. Type 2: In this type, a layer of host OS exists between Physical Server and Hypervisor. Commonly they are referred to as Hosted Hypervisor.

Since clients nowadays do not want to host big equipment in their own office, they are likely to move towards the Virtualization in which a Managed IT Company like Protected Harbor will help them to prepare the virtual environment based on their needs and that too without any hassle. Data Center Infrastructure is expanding because of this and to keep the Data Center Scalable the best practices of the DCIM need to be performed.

Virtualization not only affects the size of the Data Centers, but it also involves everything that is located inside a Data Centers. Big Data Centers means it will need additional power units with redundancy, AC, etc. This also leads to the concept of interconnected Data Centers where one of them could be hosting certain parts of an application layer and another one hosting remaining. Virtualization gives the concept of cloud since Physical Servers and not visible to clients and they are still using their resources without being involved in the management of that equipment. One of the most important benefits of Virtualization is it gives the possibility to achieve the best Data Center Infrastructure Management Practice.

Data Center Infrastructure Management

In today’s world, Data Centers are the backbone of all the technologies we use in our daily life starting from our Electronic Devices like Phones, PCs going through all the way to Software that makes our life easier. And to run everything without any glitches Data Center Infrastructure Management plays an important role.

DCIM includes all the basic steps of managing anything which consists of Deployment, Monitoring and Maintenance. For a company that wants their services with no downtime (99.99%), they always look for recent development in the technologies that will make their Data Centers Rock Solid. This is where Protected Harbor excels. We follow every single step in order to make our Data Centers equipped and updated with the latest development in the tech world.

Managing a Data Centers involves several people who are experts in their own department and they work as a team to reach the end goal. For example, A Network engineer will always make sure the networking equipment is functional and there are no anomalies. The Data Center Technician will be responsible for all other hardware that is deployed inside the Data Centers. In sort here are few things which should always be considered while Managing a Data Center:

1. Who is responsible for the Equipment?
2. Current Status of Equipment.
3. Equipment physical location.
4. When potential issues might occur.
5. How the Equipment is interconnected?

Monitoring of a Data Center is as important as any other factor involves because it gives every perspective of the hardware and software and will send an alert in case of any event.

Power Backup and Air Conditioning are two vital resources to run a Data Center. Most people do not think of these two when they hear about Data Center. A power failure will bring it down and without a Power Backup, this is highly possible. Data Centers consist of expensive Power Backups which also have redundancy which plays an important role in case of a power failure. Data Center equipment generates massive heat and that’s when Air Conditioning comes into play. The temperature inside a Data Center should always remain within its limit. Few degrees (1-2) increase in temperature will put the hardware in jeopardy. In order to make sure all of these are functional the monitoring gives accurate data and actions are taken as per those events.

While deploying a Data Center, Scalability is always kept into account. A Scalable and Secure Data Center is always needed.

Crashes, Failures, and Outages are the biggest problem of bad management, and eliminating them effectively is the primary job of Data Center Infrastructure management. The end goal of DCIM is always to provide high availability and durability. An unexpected event can occur at any time and how effectively it’s recognized and resolved will change the availability percentage. Application Interface is one of the top priority which should always remain online and in order to keep it that way the best practices are followed. In order to deploy a Data Center, the first step that is carried out is planning. The plan gets an overview of the Assets that will be required to deploy and Manage. Planning also involves the people assigned to each task that will be carried out in the successful deployment of the Data Center.

Scalability of DATA CENTERS and Why it’s important?

Technology is being more advanced every single day and to keep up with its development the Data Centers should also be capable of all the changes that happen in Technologies. Scalability provides the concept of Data Centers which can be expanded based on the needs and its expansion will not affect any previously deployed equipment. Scalability is important because how fast a Data Center can grow depends on it and increasing demand does indicate the same.

DCIM involves Asset Management which is basically keeping checks on all the equipment deployed inside the Data Center when they will need replacement or maintenance. This also generates a report on the expenses involved. Since it’s been established that Data Centers has lots of equipment which mean in case of maintenance there may be times when the Hardware Company will also have to be involved to fix broken equipment.

In the end, DCIM can be categorized as the backbone of Data Centers which plays an important role in every aspect of a Tech Company, and using DCIM tools high availability can be achieved.