Expanding your business and scaling it up requires adding capacity to your existing Data center to meet growing IT demands. This is especially applicable in terms of servers and storage.

The real challenge in expanding data centers lies in integrating the existing facility with the new one.

Expanding your current data centers can be complex as you need to deal with various issues such as aging equipment and older design topologies.

Here are some of the crucial factors to consider when expanding your data center:

10 Critical Things to Consider When Expanding a Data Center

1. Planning data center’s capacity 

From the design perspective, you first need to understand your space requirements and ensure sufficient room for new equipment.

Some of the critical considerations for planning a data center’s space and capacity are given below.

• Choosing the right location for the new equipment can be rigged in its place and ensure proper access to it for easy interconnection with the existing ones in the facility.

• You also need to consider utilization of rack space, rack power, UPS power, upstream breaker or panel power, cooling, fiber or data port connectivity at the rack, patch panels, and switches.

2. Phasing of new installation and isolation of the existing system

The next step is integrating the new installations with the existing system.

Here, you need to check if the existing devices could be disconnected and give way for the new ones. Some of the key things to keep in mind at this stage are as follows.

• Check if the new installations affect the existing ones, if so, then ensure that you have temporary infrastructure components.

• Isolate the existing system by placing devices such as valves and circuit breakers to interconnect the new system into the existing ones.

3. Layout & cooling for newly installed devices 

This is an essential aspect concerning data center expansion. You need to enhance the efficiency of the data center by implementing appropriate cooling architecture such as room, row, and rack cooling architecture or a combination of them.

Creating high-density zones by concentrating high-density IT loads into smaller areas can isolate the new devices from the existing load and help better monitor.

Maintain environmental neutrality by using containment models such as hot-aisle and cold-aisle to improve the efficiency of the data center.

4. Utilization of modern servers for storage, high performance, and less power consumption

Implement newer server technologies to improve the overall efficiency of the data center. Modern servers and storage devices consume the same power as their predecessors but perform more work and provide more extensive storage.

Utilizing Server Virtualization and consolidation helps you deliver improved services and offer flexibility when deploying and provisioning new services without adding extra servers. In addition, this enables you to focus on supporting the IT load on the existing servers.

5. Manage your data center assets with DCIM tools

Integrate your data center cooling and power systems using the Data Center Infrastructure Management tool (DCIM).

It also helps you manage all physical data center assets in one place. It also helps to monitor, measure, and control the utilization and energy consumption of all IT devices in a data center, along with other infrastructure components, like power distribution units.

DCIM tools can also be handy for quick provisioning of new equipment and planning capacity for future growth. These tools also help in reducing energy costs and increasing operational efficiency.

6. Scaling power requirements for future needs

While expanding your data center, you need to ensure that your IT loads get sufficient power supply along with proper redundancy systems to provide round-the-clock support.

Unlike traditional UPS systems which require downtime to perform upgrades and tests for recommissioning the system, Scalable Rack-Based Systems can solve this problem by being self-contained racks within the data center.

This will ensure that your IT loads remain online 24/7 and allow you to perform UPS upgrades when workloads are the lightest.

7. Testing the new infrastructure in conformance with vendors claims

From a commissioning perspective, it is important to test new devices and monitor their real-world performance in conformance with the claims represented by the vendors and company representatives.

Similarly, identify failure thresholds, configuration defects and validate the performance, availability, security, and scalability of newly installed devices as it provides headroom for future-proofing data center expansion.

8. Operating procedures must comply with upgraded systems

Operating Procedures such as Standard Operating Procedure(SOP), Emergency Operating Procedures(EOP), and Maintenance Operating Procedures need to be updated in compliance with the new systems in place.

Provide adequate training to Engineers and Data Center Operators and practice exercises to evaluate readiness in adherence to new operational policies.

9. Evaluating costs

Expanding your data center must result in reducing costs. Therefore evaluate expenses involved in developing the data center and compare them to the costs involved in running the existing data center.

You can also outsource certain critical aspects of the project to consultants such as Mechartes, who can provide you with Data Center designing and modern HVAC systems to optimize the health of your data center using CFD modeling.

10. Regulatory compliance

Finally, your data center expansion must comply with safety and energy standards such as ASHRAE, NFPA, etc.

The decision to expand or upgrade is always a wise decision as it throws an opportunity to utilize modern power and cooling technologies to scale up your business.

Moreover, expanding your data center will require involvement from business leaders and technical heads of your organization to make crucial decisions on design and planning.

You can also approach Data Center consultants like Mechartes to help you in each stage of the data center expansion. Mechartes can offer you Data Center solutions ranging from Data Center architecture, HVAC solutions for airflow management and provide guidelines to meet regulatory compliance of your data center.

If you are looking to expand your data center in a hassle-free and cost-effective manner, then you are just one click away. Contact Us