Three things to consider before building a data center

90% of the world’s data was created in the past two years, with more than 2.5 exabytes of data created every day. This rapid growth means that more and more data centers are needed to store and manage this information. However, building a data center is not a simple task for organizations, and its projects are long and expensive. When organizations begin to consider the need for a new data center facility, most of the work is done before construction. Without proper planning, organizations risk creating data centers that are not appropriately sized and are not optimized for efficiency, resulting in excessive capital costs or failing to meet existing and future needs.

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When planning to build a data center, organizations need to consider three key items to ensure that they meet the needs of the organization and the projects they serve: existing facilities, the business needs of the organization, and the data center and technical environment. Getting specific answers in these three areas will enable organizations to make the best choices for the design, construction, installation, and activation of the data center.

1. Existing facilities

The key to understanding how to plan and build a new data center is to understand the details of the existing data center setup and capacity, whether it is your own, a colocation provider or a cloud provider's data center facility. Having a clear understanding of what already exists can help determine whether building a new data center is indeed the right choice. Colocation, outsourcing or cloud computing or a hybrid model can meet your organization's data center needs.

At this stage, organizations need to focus on:

• How old is the existing data center?
• Does the existing data center support the organization's current and future needs?
• Is it possible to expand the existing facilities?
• What are the risks of expanding an existing data center? Will it require downtime?
• Can outsourcing, hosting, or a cloud computing/hybrid model provide the capacity your organization needs now and in the future?
• How much do these alternative solutions cost?

2. Business needs of the organization

As part of the evaluation process, it is also critical to understand the organization's business goals and how the data center meets the organization's needs. A key part of this is understanding the role of IT in the organization and how the data center and its operations align with business goals. This requires a close look at the amount of data the business handles, how it is collected, stored and accessed, who uses the data, and the relevant industry standards that the data center must comply with.

Questions to look at when evaluating business needs:

• What are the organization's goals? How does the organization's IT infrastructure and data center support those goals?
• How have your organization's IT or data center needs changed over the past three to five years?
• How can you predict how your business will change over the next five to ten years? What impact will this have on your IT and data center needs?
• Does the organization or the customers who will use the data center comply with regulatory requirements such as the PCI Data Security Standard to protect credit card owner information or the Health Insurance Portability and Accountability Act (HIPAA) to protect personal medical information?

3. Data Center and Technical Environment

After fully understanding the organization's goals and how the existing facilities serve the business, it is also critical to understand the organization's technology and physical data center environment.

Questions about the physical environment:

• What computing, networking, and storage equipment does the organization currently have and what is expected to be needed? The organization needs to make forecasts about future data center equipment and the physical space provided for hardware refreshes.
• How do organizations cool existing data centers? How do you plan for data center cooling? And what equipment and power capacity are needed?
• What are the organization's power requirements for computing and storage technologies and cooling solutions?
• What are your organization’s current fire and safety system requirements? And how will they need to change in the future?
• What is the size of your current data center facility? How can you predict future changes to your data center facility?
• Does the organization have adequate data center monitoring capabilities to properly manage infrastructure and IT hardware installation plans in the future?

Data center construction is a complex undertaking. If handled properly, a brand new data center will support the business goals of an organization and meet current and anticipated future needs. To successfully complete this project, the organization's approach to building it is to understand the existing data center facilities, understand the organization's business needs, and understand the necessary data center and technology environment.

The information gained during the assessment process helps organizations determine the specific needs of a new data center, gain a clear understanding of the total project cost and time required to complete, evaluate appropriate sites, and execute construction plans. With this information, organizations will be able to create data-driven, efficient plans to meet today’s and tomorrow’s data center needs.