Datacenter Operational Readiness

A key service we perform at NewVista is to ensure that the datacenter is operationally ready to provide production level services to the organization.  The fact that our team includes both datacenter infrastructure and IT Management professionals makes us uniquely qualified to perform this service for our customers. 

Operational Readiness spans many disciplines including the core infrastructure (power, cooling, etc.), monitoring and measurement systems, networking and IT equipment, and most importantly, processes.  Operational Readiness, of course, has a different meaning or set of criteria for each datacenter or infrastructure we participate in building.  The criteria for a datacenter limited to supporting development and QA activities will be different than one focused on Trading Systems or customer facing order fulfillment.

Most simplistically, when we perform an operational readiness review we ensure that your datacenter has the appropriate redundancies to ensure that it will meet or exceed the performance and availability levels that are expected, and that the processes are in place to ensure it is properly managed from a daily operational process viewpoint ,  for optimal operational performance, and longer term growth.

Some specific items we review include:

• The results of the formal datacenter commissioning processes

• Infrastructure and systems redundancies, as well as fail-over and fail-back processes for the redundant pairs.  This includes review of the control system sequencing for HVAC systems and pumps, as well as electrical system redundancies and certainly IT system redundancies.

• The placement of members of IT system redundant pairs to ensure distribution to different electrical panels, Power distribution units, etc.

• Synchronization of UPS systems, where required, to allow support of single corded devices using localized Automatic transfer switches.

• Maintenance schedules and processes for core infrastructure equipment (power, cooling, raised floor, space cleaning, etc.)

• Redundancies and processes to survive key building systems maintenance shutdowns, such as power and condenser water riser shutdowns

• Systems and applications to proactively monitor core infrastructure and IT systems and provide status and alerts to the appropriate staff.  Included in this area is a review of the data being collected for trending , utilization and efficiency calculations.

• Datacenter metrics and reporting

• Both datacenter infrastructure and IT systems change management processes

• Release Management , Incident Management Problem Management and Continuity Management  processes

• Datacenter physical security, including physical segregation of the various functional areas, access control systems and CCTV monitoring, as well as processes associated with granting access to various support teams, visitor logs, etc.

• Integration of the new datacenter into the broader corporate incident tracking systems, network management systems, configuration management databases, help desk and operational group processes, etc.

• Integration of the new datacenter into the broader Disaster Recovery and Business Continuity plans and processes.  We review the impact of migration of applications to the new datacenter on the Disaster Recovery plan to ensure that the new environment will meet or exceed all Recovery Time and Recovery Point commitments

Operational Readiness reviews can be performed as part of a new datacenter construction or migration project, or as a stand-alone assessment of an operational datacenter.