A server room is a division of a building where companies keep their live valuable computing devices such as computer networking devices and data storage servers. Normally server rooms are fire protected and are kept locked and temperature controlled 24/7 to provide physical security and suitable climate for the electronic devices to operate. The hosted devices could be routers, switches, firewalls, computers, servers, storage devices, database servers, DSL routers etc.
What is Server Room?
A Server room is also known as comms room. Many organisations use it a substitute for the data centre at a smaller and private level.
Temperature
Climate control is one of the essential factors that may greatly impact the operational activates of the devices and systems in the room. A server is generally kept with constant cool air supply and air conditioning & climate control of the room is monitored around the clock. By keeping a server room regularly clean significantly increases the performance and lifespan of the servers, climate control systems, and the HVAC systems.
Operations
Important elements like location, climate control, physical security, fire protection, building administration, electric power, resiliency, and surveillance & security play important role in the server room operation.
Location
Server rooms can be situated anywhere in the company building provided that physical security and health and safety aspects of the room are not compromised.
Climate control of the room
As electronic equipment generate a substantial amount of heat while operating, therefore server room is always kept under strict temperature and cooling control to avoid overheating and fire.
Building administration
The server room building administration is kept under experienced facility management staff. Servers and associated facilities require regular cleaning and maintenance. The facility management staff is usually held responsible definition and operation of physical security, power management, climate control, and health and safety matters.
Fire Protection and Safety
In certain cases, electronic devices may catch fire which may impact or damage the entire server room facility and services. To eliminate any chances of fire, server rooms are usually built with fire fireproof materials.
Physical security
Physical security of the server room is very important. To avoid any unauthorised access to the room, the room kept locked 24/7 and only limited access is provided to the concerned administrators. The definition of server room physical security is to keep it segregated from non-concerned people and staff.
Electric Power management
Constant electric supply is very important to the operation of any reliable server room. The electric power systems; UPS, batteries, and power backup systems are installed and maintained by qualified electricians in compliance with the required standards for server room facility design.
Energy efficiency
Power usage effectiveness (PUE) is a measure of how efficiently a server room uses energy; specifically, how much energy is used by the server equipment (in contrast to cooling and other overhead). Read more about how to improve the energy efficiency of a server room?
Redundancy
Any server room that hosts mission-critical servers and services are designed as fully fault-tolerant as possible and are facilitated with redundant electric power supply, circuit connections (up-links), storage, chillers, servers etc.
Surveillance and security
Like any other important room of a building, server rooms are physically kept under surveillance 24/7 to avoided unauthorised access, damage, and theft.
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