DCA REVIEW Resilience & Operational Best Practice
Traditionally, however, this approach is rarely adopted by the industry. In addition to this, a learning environment, which promotes continuous improvement, is recommended to allow teams to learn from the failures and near misses that do occur. This increases knowledge and awareness of possible failure scenarios.
Complexity
A 2N system is the minimum requirement for a SPOF-free
(single point of failure free) system, in which two or more simultaneous events result in a failure. Traditional risk analyses, such as FTA (fault tree analysis) are not applicable to human error in which data is subjective and variables, infinite. In a 2N scenario, the two discrete systems can be designed to have no interaction. This creates a simple design with limited complexity. However, facilities are rarely designed in this way. For example using BMS controlled automatic disaster recovery changeovers, rather than simple mechanical interlocks. Although the design remains 2N, the number of variables
and complexity has increased exponentially. The training and knowledge requirements to run the systems are therefore increased. Research has also shown that failures are often due to an unforeseen sequence of events. Until it has occurred there is no knowledge of it’s potential. The Austrian physicist, Ludwig Von Boltzmann, developed an equation for entropy that has been applied to statistics, and in particular, to missing information. The theory can be used to determine the number of questions needed to determine which box, on a defined grid, a coin is placed. If we substitute system
What makes a data centre stand out from the crowd? The People!
By Mike Bennett, VP of global data centre acquisition and expansion at CenturyLink Technology Solutions EMEA.
What is it that makes a data centre stand out from the crowd? Connectivity, cooling and power are (of course) fundamentals but it’s the people inside that are the real differentiators. They have the power to evolve a facility; they have the power to make a good data centre great or a potentially great data centre average.
Many providers build a data centre and have someone else manage it. They effectively outsource the running of the facility, while they sell the space in it. They are essentially property companies and that’s ok, if it works for them.
However, the knock-on is that the staff members that are brought in are very limited in what they can do to make positive change. They may only be on site for a three-five year contract (of for even less if they come in half way through) and so there is little incentive to improve the smallest things, that ultimately pay dividends later on down the line.
On the other hand, permanent dc workers are able to take real pride in where they work and make a high personal investment. They know that they can make a serious difference and it feels like ‘their’ facility. If they discover a more effective way of doing something, they
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test it and if works, before you know it, it’s rolled out globally. You can be sure that the rightful credit is given and that person gets the recognition they deserve.
The ability to make a real change is a powerful motivator and helps attract the best from other mission critical industries. Those coming from manufacturing backgrounds (to pick but one example) have a huge amount of transferable skills and bring trade secrets that, on the surface, appear to be completely unrelated to the dc space. One such recent example is someone that came from a chocolate factory.
The factory could never shut down as the chocolate and sugar would freeze in the pipes, bringing manufacturing to a halt for weeks. You better believe such an environment taught him the importance of zero downtime and how to keep things running smoothly!
It’s not just about the quality of staff; it’s about enabling those talented individuals to constantly improve to the benefit of everyone involved. And when data centre engineering staff can stay with their company for 25 years, even the smallest things are worth doing. There is an important distinction between a data centre and a professional data centre operation and, more often than not, it’s the people.
components for the boxes, and unknown failure events for the coins, we can consider how system availability is compromised by complexity. It can be seen that with fewer unknown failure events, the number of ways in which a system can fail are reduced. Increasing our detailed knowledge of systems, and discovering unknown events will therefore reduce the combinations in which the system can fail, thereby reducing risk.
Conclusion
Human error is indisputably the largest contributor to data centre downtime. Continual, site-specific training is therefore of paramount importance in reducing facility failures. Furthermore, reducing complexity not only reduces the number of unknown sequences of events that cause a failure, it also reduces the amount of training required. Finally, it is important that particular attention is paid to the processes used when handing over a live site to the operations team to ensure knowledge is not left with the installation and commissioning contractors.
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