Preface
"Omne ignotum pro magnifico."
Tacitus
Designing a data center, whether a new facility or retrofitting an existing
one, is no easy, simple task. If you don't interact with people well, if you
can't communicate effectively with people who are not in your area of expertise,
if you don't enjoy solving difficult problems, if you want a simple, stress-free
work life, don't design a data center!!!
Okay, now that all the loafing cowards have stopped reading, we can start
talking about what this book hopes to accomplish.
This book attempts to walk you through the design process and offers a
method that can be used to create a design that meets the requirements of your
data center. This book is not a book of designs. It is a tool to work through
your requirements and find solutions to create the best design for those
requirements.
Early in my career as a system administrator, someone said to me, "Data
centers are black magic. They are not understandable or discernible by mere
mortals." I can't print my response to that person, but that brief
confrontational conversation stuck in my brain. I can tell you, designing data
centers isn't "black magic." A data center is a complex and interdependent
environment, however, it can be broken down into smaller, more manageable
pieces. Methodologies can be used that make designing data centers
understandable and discernible by mere mortals. To that person many years ago
who tried to tell me otherwise, I have this to say: "You were wrong, and this
book proves it!"
Over the years, I've worked in a number of different data centers, and in
that time I've had the opportunity to talk to many of Sun's customers about
their centers and take tours through them. What I repeatedly found, with very
few exceptions, was that there was no overall design methodology used when
planning these centers. If there was a methodology, it usually came out of
overcoming one or two problems that had bitten these people in previous data
centers. Sometimes the problem areas were so over-designed that it forced other
design areas to suffer.
Often, the people who designed the space had never worked in data center
environments. They typically designed commercial spaces like offices and
warehouses and they used one basic method or formula for the design criteria:
watts per square foot. This method assumes that the equipment load across the
entire space is uniform. In every data center I have seen, the equipment load
has never been uniform. Add to this that all of the pieces that make up a data
center (power, cooling, floor load, connectivity, etc.) are all interrelated and
dependent on each other. It became very clear that this old method of watts per
square foot was not an effective or efficient design method. A better method
that could address these issues was needed.
When I started trying to create this new design methodology, I looked to
other sources of design for information and inspiration, what Shakespeare would
have probably referred to as muses. These run the gamut from classical antiquity
to modern pop culture, and from artists and philosophers to fashion designers
and punk rock musicians. At the beginning of every chapter in this book is a
quote from one of these many muses. I hope that they can help provide you with
similar inspiration, or better still, help you find your own muses.
So, just what does "Omne ignotum, pro magnifico" mean? It translates as
"Everything unknown is taken for magnificent." It means "Everything is
commonplace by explanation." With information, reason, inspiration, and hard
work, many things, including designing a data center, are understandable and
doable.
So let's get started! Or, to borrow a phrase from my Southern California
Skateboarder's Lexicon, "Let's get radical!"
Sun BluePrints Program
The mission of the Sun BluePrints Program is to empower Sun's customers
with the technical knowledge required to implement reliable, extensible, and
secure information systems within the datacenter using Sun products. This
program provides a framework to identify, develop, and distribute best practices
information that applies across the Sun product lines. Experts in technical
subjects in various areas contribute to the program and focus on the scope and
usefulness of the information.
The Sun BluePrints Program includes books, guides, and online articles.
Through these vehicles, Sun can provide guidance, installation and
implementation experiences, real-life scenarios, and late-breaking technical
information.
The monthly electronic magazine, Sun BluePrints OnLine,
is located on the Web at http://www.sun.com/blueprints.
To be
notified about updates to the Sun BluePrints Program, please register yourself
on this site.
Who Should Use This Book
This book is primarily intended for readers with varying degrees of
experience or knowledge of data center technology. It is written for System and
Network Administrators, MIS/IT managers, Operations staff, and Information
Technology executives who would like a complete overview of the data center
design process.
Before You Read This Book
You should be familiar with the basic administration and maintenance
functions of a data center.
How This Book Is Organized
This book contains the following chapters and appendixes.
Chapter 1, "Data Center Design Philosophy," presents the author's
philosophy of designing a data center sanely and efficiently, including the top
ten guidelines.
Chapter 2, "Data Center Design Criteria," discusses the primary criteria of
data center design including project scope, budget, availability profiles,
insurance, building code, and determining the viability of the project.
Chapter 3, "Designing a Data Center," discusses the basic design process,
the key players, the method of designing for data center capacities, determining
the structural layout and support systems, networking, redundancy, security,
monitoring, and system health.
Chapter 4, "Determining Data Center Capacities," could be considered the
heart of the book. It describes the use of rack location units (RLUs) to
determine the best design for the data center. It bases the design on the data
center and equipment capacities rather than on electrical needs and square
footage. It will take you through the planning stages and explain how to create
RLU definitions in the early design stages.
Chapter 5, "Site Selection," examines locating the data center in either an
existing location or a build-to-suit situation. It takes an in-depth look at
budget, access, security, capacity, environmental restrictions, and numerous
other details to consider in selecting the best location.
Chapter 6, "Implementing a Raised Floor," describes the several purposes of
a raised floor system, the benefits of using this system over other systems, and
goes into important structural details such as the support grid, tile
construction, and load capabilities. It also covers the use of the subfloor
space for air flow and cable routing.
Chapter 7, "Power Distribution," examines all aspects of the data center's
power requirements and support systems. It covers assessing power needs, safety,
redundancy, backup power systems, grounding and bonding, the signal reference
grid, wiring and cabling, power quality, avoiding electromagnetic and
electrostatic problems, and the optional use of power distribution units.
Chapter 8, "HVAC and Other Environmental Controls," takes you through the
entire data center air flow and cooling system from HVAC units to the external
support systems. It discusses the problems inherent in cooling a data center and
how to remedy them. Other aspects are described, such as humidification,
temperature and RH monitoring, mechanical support systems, proper air flow,
exchange, pressure, and quality, and efficient placement of equipment.
Chapter 9, "Network Cabling Infrastructure," describes various devices and
cabling scenarios for the data center network. It discusses the structure of the
network, network hierarchy and modular design, connectivity between equipment
and to the ISP, proper routing, cable identification, and verification.
Chapter 10, "Shipping, Receiving, and Staging," describes important but
often overlooked aspects of the data center that should be considered in the
initial design phases. Heavy equipment must be moved in and out of the center
and it must go through packing, unpacking, and setup procedures. This chapter
covers aspects of the loading dock, staging area, and storage areas.
Chapter 11, "Avoiding Hazards," discusses the gamut of natural and man-made
hazards including fire, earthquake, flooding, and noise. It also discusses human
safety and avoiding unauthorized access.
Chapter 12, "Environmental Contaminants," describes many of the
contaminants that can cause operator health problems and compromise the
operations of data center equipment. The different types of contaminants are
discussed, how they can adversely affect operations, and how to avoid them.
Solutions include positive pressurization and quality filtration.
Chapter 13, "Codes and Construction," discusses the convoluted topic of
codes and their many incarnations, and gives some basic construction criteria.
Appendix A, "Managing System Configurations," A reprint of the October 2001
SuperG paper by Elizabeth Purcell. This paper examines the challanges of
accurate system configuration managment including configuration management for
software revisions, network interfaces, storage subsystems, firmware, and
patches.
Appendix B, "Bibliography and References," lists books, other technical
documentation, organizations, and software.
The Glossary is a list of terms and acronyms used frequently in the course
of discussing data centers.
Ordering Sun Documents
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