Tips for Building a Small-Biz Data Closet

Usually, even medium-sized businesses have enough of an IT budget to put together a ‘real’ data center. But often these and smaller organizations are forced to make do with an empty room or even a spare closet. That’s not necessarily a bad thing, but if you’ve got to go that route, these are a few good steps to follow:

1. Make sure it’s enclosed. Spare cubicles doth not a good server room make. The only advantage they might have is good airflow, but that’s easily outweighed by the noise, power, security and heat flow side effects. You’re far better off dividing an office in half or findig a closet big enough for a server rack.

2. Don’t forget about air flow. Venting and heat dissipation becomes all the more critical the smaller the space surrounding the server. Stick a couple of servers in a closet and they’ll overheat significantly faster than if you stick them in a spare room. So while buying a rack and finding a closet sounds quick, making sure that closet can be vented is crucial.

3. Plan for cables, then run them. Too many of these half-way data center projects are treated so casually that cable management is considered only when the servers are being slid into the racks. Better advice? Make sure your vent problem is solved, then organize and run your cables, then buy servers, racks and the rest of your infrastructure.

4. Don’t shy away from patch panels. Yes, it’s a different punch down process, but patch panels can be worth gold for organizing small office cabling. They’re cheap by themselves, you’ve just got to dish for a wiring pro to do the punch downs–unless you’re willing to learn yourself.

5. Think about flooring. Cabling brings up the issue of flooring. While a raised floor is the default, that’s not always the best thing for a closet-sized data center. Raised floors require access in order take advantage–possible in a spare office, but a pain in a closet. This is dictated by your particular circumstance, but don’t under-value the flexibility of ceiling panels.

Last, don’t leave carpet in there. Can’t tell you how many times I see that. If it’s going to be a data closet, treat it like one and put down anti-static flooring.

6. Educate your cleaning staff. It sounds funny, but servers can get fried by cleaning people who don’t know what it is they’re trying to make sparkel. Especially so if you suddenly stick expensive stuff in an old closet and don’t tell anyone. Make sure that cleaning staff understand that the closet is now highly electrical and that cleaning should be restricted to vacuuming the floor near the rack and polishing the screens and front-bezels of machines using specialized cleaning rags like those sold by 3M.

7. Monitoring is important. With lack of space and heat being such an issue, monitoring temperature becomes all-important. Sure, these devices can be expensive, but if they save your servers from a meltdown they’re worth it. They can also tell you if you’ve got enough venting and airflow aids or you need more.

8. Security is still important. Just because it’s in a closet doesn’t mean your server is any less important. Upgrading to a high-security door lock is a good idea. Then talk to your building faciities management about what kind of extension a closet or office can get from your building’s fire suppression systems. Even consider installing a higher-end one just for that space if you’ve got the bucks–though that’s usually not cost-effective for a closet.

9. Invest in off-site backup. No matter how smart you are, no matter how many tape drives or NAS boxes you’ve got, building a make-shift data center in a closet means not having access to all the disaster-recovery tools and reliability conveniences that a full-sized data center has to offer. So cover your posterior and invest in off-site data backup solutions like Iron Mountain. Worth every penny on a bad day.