A messy data center can put you at risk for downtime. Here’s how to sort things out…

Sometimes, in data centers, it is the little things that can pile up. Quite literally. Like the dust in the corner of the room that houses millions and millions of dollars’ worth of equipment. Or the messy cabling perhaps that is running through the length and breadth of your swanky data center room? Messy data centers are more than just an eye sore. They can be detrimental to business as well.

Here’s what can happen if you don’t straighten things up at the data center.

Air damming is the blocking of airflow. If equipment is placed haphazardly across the data center it can block airflow, which means preventing hot air from being properly expelled through the exhaust system. It also ends up preventing new, cool air from flowing in. This ultimately leads to the equipment overheating causing it to break down. And that means, downtime.

Air Damming

With air damming, etc temperatures can remain high for a long time inside a data center room. Now what continual high temperature does is that it leads to faster cable degradation, which then results in network performance issues and hardware failure. Overcrowded data center cabling and using low-quality or old patch cables can also result in network latency. And that means, downtime.

Network Latency

When you have continually high temperatures because of ad hoc placing of equipment that does not allow hot air to escape, you are using more energy to get the cool air in. And that is going to ultimately result in increasing your operating costs because you are going to be using way more power for cooling your overheated equipment. Dust particles that collect in a data center may carry an electrostatic charge which can lead to signal disturbances, short circuits, and power failures. And that means, you guessed it, downtime.

Operational Inefficiencies

There are some simple efficient ways to ensure your cabling is smooth. Something as simple as labeling and color-coding the cables will ease the mess as it ensures traceability. Remove abandoned cables as they can lead to air damming.

So what’s the solution? Tidy up!

Data centers are always being upgraded so if you feel to make room for adding additional cables for upgrades then you are going to end up with a mass of cables that prevent network hardware from properly exhausting excess heat. Structured future-proof cabling is therefore important. You could also check out Hardy Racks brush panels that provide clean and easy cable entry.

Remember that cabling also generates heat so if you have a massive amount of cable, the extra temperature can lead to outages. So, do consider putting temperature monitoring units in your data center to monitor overheating. Hardy Racks for instance has a rack-based temperature monitoring system that can automate the process of temperature maintenance within a data center.

If you need temperature monitoring or cable solutions, do get in touch with Hardy Racks. We specialize in data center hardware and accessories.