Within the Cloud: Technical Concepts of Cloud Computing - Deploying and Managing a Cloud Infrastructure - page 76

The failure was eventually going to happen; it was only a matter of time. And if this goes
unaddressed, it will happen again in the same location, with the replacement equipment.
This just further illustrates the importance of an optimized and well-designed cooling
infrastructure.
Even though environment- and cooling-related incidents are more iso-
lated than power-related failures, an optimized cooling infrastructure with
remote monitoring is still required to keep IT equipment performing at its
optimum and to make use of it throughout its full, rated life span, therefore
minimizing environment-related failures.
Fortunately all of this can be avoided by not skimping on the cooling infrastructure dur-
ing design and construction, but if it is too late for that, upgrades or installation of a better
system can help, although that may be a bit costly.
Here are some best practices and investments that can be applied to a data center with
less-than-adequate cooling solutions:
■ Bring precision cooling closer to the load through row-based precision cooling solu-
tions to eliminate rack hotspots.
■ Prevent water incursion by using refrigerant-based solutions rather than
water-based ones.
■ Install comprehensive remote monitoring facilities that have temperature triggers and
thresholds to warn operators of possible cooling issues.
■ Do regular preventive maintenance, and do not wait for something to fail before repair
or replacement. This could mean the difference between catastrophic failure and no
failure at all.
Though these are rather basic and common-sense solutions, you will be surprised how
often they are put aside to cater to an executive's idea of saving money in the short term.
Foresight is always more important than patching symptoms of current problems.
Data Center Monitoring and Maintenance
Data center monitoring has been mentioned quite a number of times in this chapter, and
you might have an idea of how important it is even without us telling you.
As organizations go to the process of cutting costs and looking for ways to save money
and increase the bottom line in the long run, data center optimization will be on the table,
especially for those organizations that rely heavily on their IT for revenue. There will be
constant upgrades and innovations in order to try to increase revenue growth, the top line,
and companies might also be looking for ways to save money while upgrading, for that all-
important bottom line.
But as new technologies are deployed to support newer services, complexity is introduced
into the system, especially if it is being transitioned to newer technology. Cloud data cen-
ters are especially vulnerable to this complexity. Cloud data centers have a homogeneous