Assignment No: 1

IT Infrastructure Management

Data Centre Design Analysis @ AIMS

Prepared by,

Ajay M
KH.BU.P2.MBA09003

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A data centre is a facility used to house computer systems and associated components,
such as telecommunications and storage systems. The following are the general
requirements of a data centre:

Gc Provide a physically secure location for servers, storage and network equipment.
Gc Provide 24*7 network connectivity for equipment within the data centre to
devices outside the data centre
Gc Provide necessary power to operate all equipment
Gc Provide an environment where the temperature and humidity are controlled
within a narrow range and air is exchanged at an adequate rate.

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A data centre can occupy one room of a building or one or more floors, or an entire
building. Most of the equipment is often in the form of servers mounted in 19 inch rack
cabinets which are positioned in such a way that it allows the people to access the front
and rear of each cabinet for maintenance purpose and also helps free flow air
circulation between the cabinets.

The following are some of the features for design of an outstanding data centre:

Gc Design must be 

Gc Design must be   
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In this project, the data centre design of AIMS hospital is been analysed on the
following factors:

Rc Airflow design
Rc Scalability of design
Rc Network design

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Rc Power provisions

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Air conditioning is required to devices cool and maintains low humidity in the data
centre. The temperature in a data centre will naturally rise because the electrical power
used heats the air. Unless the heat is removed, the ambient temperature will rise,
resulting in electronic equipment malfunction. Cooling requirements are measured in
British Thermal Units (BTUs) per hour.

The airflow pattern is controlled be the under-floor pressure, which, in turn, depends on
the HVAC unit and relative placement of solid and perforated tiles on the raised floor.
Rack fans and roof fans are used to exhaust the hot air emitted out of the machines.
Apart from these the data centre should be always provided with proper cooling
systems that suctions the hot air inside and maintains humidity in the data centre.

At AIMS, the data centre does not have a well designed cooling system. There are three
air conditioners with a capacity of 1.5 tonnes each. There are no proper exhausts to
pump the hot air emitted from the machines (servers) and there are no proper systems
to prevent the hot air entering back to the systems thereby increasing the temperature.
Such overheating of the servers will decrease their performance. This may be
considered as the major drawback in the AIMS data centre.
Moreover the data center doesnƞt have raised flooring. The AIMS data center flooring
has not been done with plan. They have added equipments as and when there was a
requirement and have never considered the issue of flooring as such. Proper flooring of
the data centre would improve the airflow reducing the heat inside and also help in
reducing the complexity in cabling.
Installation of more rack fans and roof fans would help in ensuring smooth flow of air
across the rack servers that will solve the cooling problem of the server room at AIMS.

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There should always be required power to run all the devices in the data centre. To
protect against power failures, uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) must be present in
every data centre. Since power conduits and wiring are difficult to retrofit, the future
requirements should always be taken into consideration while designing a data centre.

At AIMS, the power supply system for the data centre is capable to handle the power
requirements and power supply interruptions. They provide an uninterrupted power
supply using UPS and also have diesel generators for backup.

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The bandwidth offered by the internet service providers (ISP) should be atleast be
equal to the data centreƞs inbound and outbound bandwidth specifications. Since the
cost of bandwidth, network switches, and ports goes down over time, it is worthwhile to
provision only the amount required and add more if and when needed. In order to
make the best decision for a cabling system for a data centre, it is required to consider
the types of applications that are running, bandwidth needed to run the applications,
specified switching infrastructure, port density requirements, space constraints, and
overall pricing.

In AIMS, the routers are installed at separate locations outside the data centre. The
installation is not proper and is more of a temporary type. There is no proper naming
for the cables which makes difficult to identify and select the cables.

Proper naming has to be given for the cables so that it would be easy for executing
maintenance. Instead of locating the routers outside the data centre, they can be
located inside. Concealed cabling and raised flooring would make the data centre look
more spacious and reduces the heat dissipation.

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The AIMS server room is well equipped with fire extinguishers. Smoke detector has
been installed that can sense any variation in the data centre and sends a SMS to the
system administrator to provide early warning. A fire sprinkler system is often provided
to control a full scale fire if it develops. It is been recommended to install advanced
detectors to sense fire hazards and alert the personnel and activate fire suppression
systems.




The data centre is equipped with finger print recognition system and only authorized
personnel can enter inside the data centre. Unauthorized entry is not allowed and
automated locks work along with finger print recognition.

Surveillance cameras have to be installed in the data centre to increase the security of
the data centre.



At AIMS, we have a data centre which may be 300 sq. feet and equips four 19 inch rack
cabinets and are arranged in such a way that personnel can access the front side of the
rack. The rear side of the cabinet is fully congested with improper wiring of the cables
which produces more heat in the rack. Moreover it is hard for the maintenance people
since the cables are not named properly. Proper airflow is also not maintained in the
data centre. If they had implemented raised flooring then both the HVAC and the
cabling issues can be addressed. They have not considered the scalability of the data
centre prior to designing the data centre.

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