Prepare Your Data Centers For The Rainy Season

With data centers housing crucial data through their servers, it goes without saying that weather plays a major role in determining its efficiency. If the summer months require data center managers to ensure that cable pathways are all arranged in order and that no amount of humidity leaves the servers in a precarious state, the monsoon months would have the same managers ensuring no amount of water seeps into the server room and that every external outage is protected from damages to reduce weather-related downtime.

Let’s take a look at how you can prepare for the worst during the monsoon season and recover faster than the others.

If your data center is new, then ensure that you look into how the floor plan can be designed keeping in mind extreme weather conditions such as floods, storms, snow, etc. Raised floors will stop the water from touching the equipment during a flood. Before the monsoon season begins, check to make sure that there are no crevices that can allow water to seep in.

Re-look at your floor plan

Consider the overall drainage system, fix leaky pipes (internal and external) and study the soil outside to figure out if it would be able to absorb enough water or not.

Are your duct designs sloped enough? Are the vaults in your data center allowing moisture to get in? Think about these questions while preparing for the monsoon months, because the truth is, even a single shower of heavy rainfall can break into the duct’s fiber and fill the vaults, causing short-circuit and issues that would likely last a long time.

Be familiar with your duct designs

Moisture seeping in can further ruin the insulation system and even allow some equipment to corrode. You can avoid long-term, expensive damage by studying your ducts, vaults, and other penetrations or paths that could lead to significant leakage. If you identify any, seal these ducts with foam and silicon temporarily, until you find a long-term solution.

While you might be familiar with the fact that server racks are used to house servers and other equipment, do consider the fact that the right racks can protect your equipment from weather-related damage, too!

Install server racks with doors

Install special server racks with doors that can avoid routers and switches from falling off or being splashed with water. This will put important server equipment in place and reduce the extra running around for safer housing of the equipment.

Before heavy rains begin, come up with a plan that aims to reduce downtime. Install multiple data circuits and ensure that there is an uninterrupted supply of power to keep your data center up and running the whole time.

Have a back-up plan ready

In the event of unexpected downtime due to lack of power supply or damage, ensure that recovery happens in another location free of all these hindrances. Keep in mind that a good recovery plan would include: taking stock of all the systems and equipment that have endured damage, urgently restoring only those systems that are absolutely necessary, moving on towards recovery by making up for all the downtime.

It is important to always be prepared for a disaster with a foolproof recovery plan and high-quality equipment that wouldn’t fail you during the toughest of times. Are you looking for help in assessing your risks and taking the necessary protective measures for the rainy months? Get in touch with Hardy Racks for a consultation today!