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Server Room Design
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Our daily troubles solving disk failures or typical
user problems can take up a lot of valuable time.
But the necessity to protect our infrastructure must come first. So let
us talk about does and don'ts as you are responsible for your systems
availability.
What can happen?
STEP 1
The might be a fire in your server room? or some mad
guy could detonate a bomb close to your building and burst
all your windows.
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Do you really think that you'll only have to repair your
windows?
Wake up lad.
The flying glass will rip your open any unprotected cable or
land inside your racks destroying components like memory (HDD,
RAM).
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What if the lorry explodes?
Server Room will be ... |
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Burst monitors can be replaced easily as they are
not required fora server to run. But a server needs cables,
power, memory, ...
Then think about that scenario!
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Place server away from the street.
You might reply:
we've got roads on all 4 sides of our building!
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Rearrange the Server Room
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Of course you could ...
Try placing the server room in the cellar if you are
not endangered by flooding (rivers close to??)
Or place it in the middle of the building with extra
strong walls.
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Break up your server room into several section placing
each section with a separate fire protection and alarm.
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Protect in sections
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By breaking up protection you make sure flying objects
do nor rip the complete infrastructure and any faulty
fire meter does not fill your entire server room with
fire killing fluid.
An insurance can pay for such faults but the results
for your business are often not covered. Medium business can
often not afford such a costly insurance.
If you have made a bomb or blast emergency plan and have set
up protective elements you should jump to step 2.
STEP 2
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Have a look at the stuff you have placed in your server
room.
Are you mad?
What's that printer and those pallets of paper doing in your
server room? |
What do I see?
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Please do not place such material like pallets of
paper in one of the most valuable rooms! Designate a room for
your printers and a secure room for paper if you still need
to print a lot.
Paper and a cigarette love each other but your server do not smoke so
get those pallets out of your room!
STEP 3
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Where do you stand unpacked servers? In your server room?
Not there!
Unpack the newly delivered systems in a seperate room and
if there is not enough room move them to a seperate room.
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Protect in sections
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Have you heard your security consultant saying this:
I forgot to tell you that that lift in the middle of that
server room has to come out!!
But why?
Let me explain. If a fire evolves one floor further down the
heat and other gases will collect and suddenly rush through that
lift shaft. That is you in case of a fire you are told to use
the stairs.
Depending on your building you could place the lift
like in the picture above. Take time to consult a specialist
as every building is different.
STEP 4
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If there is a fire how can the fire fighters access
your server rooms?
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This article should make you think about protecting
your infrastructure from classic dangers.
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