New Data Center Standard

mstansberry writes to tell us that the Telecommunications Industry Association (the people who brought you the CAT standards for unshielded twisted pair cabling) recently published a 148 page document meant to standardize the design considerations for every single aspect of a data center. The standard covers everything from site selection to rack mounting methods.

Comments

Doomed to failure?

[Toby The Economist]

Be interesting to see if it's useful.

When you specify something like a cable, it's straightfoward to get it right, because the job the cable does and the way it's used is very well understood and doesn't vary between users.

With something complex like a data center, there's so much variance in how they're operated, exactly what they do, where they are, etc...having a standard may well *not* fit everyone's needs, either because their needs were not perceived or understood at the time or because their needs simply cannot be met by the standard.

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Toby

Re:Doomed to failure?

[JanneM]

With something complex like a data center, there's so much variance in how they're operated, exactly what they do, where they are, etc...having a standard may well *not* fit everyone's needs, either because their needs were not perceived or understood at the time or because their needs simply cannot be met by the standard.

True.

But when you have a formal standard, you have something to measure against. Every aspect of the data center design is not only standardized, but the how's, why's and therefore's are spelled out. If you suspect the standard doesn't meet your needs in some respect (a clear lack of surround sound for late-night fps tournaments, say), it makes it clear exactly how your criteria changes the requirements, and it makes it much easier to see how it could impact the rest of the design.

So even if you use not one single recommendation (we need the disco ball, damnit!), you have something reasonable and well documented to compare against, which makes your job easier.

Re:Not this again ...

[drsmithy]

I don't imagine this would be an especially effective means of encouraging compliance either... "we'll tell you what to do for the low, low price of $250!!"

Out of the costs involved in setting up a data centre, $250 wouldn't even qualify as a rounding error.

This is a really bad idea, sort of

[DaEMoN128]

From TFA, this is a "checklist" for CIO's. Last thing I need is my PHB having a list to check off and thinking they are requirements instead of suggestions. You never give a PHB this much info. They dont know what you are doing a good part of the time anyways... and a little info is more dangerous than none.

It can be a good idea if the techs get a hold of it though and stop giving my 2 inches of slack on these fiber runs and give be a proper service loop with good cable dressing instead of the rats nests I've had to fix recently.