Data Center Standards Advancing

• By theWHIR.com , July 12, 2004

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Data Center Standards Advancing

Rawlson O'Neil King, theWHIR.com

July 12, 2004 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY

REVIEW) -- Complex Web hosting firms will soon have more established

standards by which to build out their data centers. By building out

facilities in a highly structured and methodical way, service providers

in the near future will be able to make all aspects of their properties

modular, and construct them to proper industry specifications.

A modular approach will allow hosting

firms to escape from the nascent characteristics that currently define

the industry. No longer will building out a data center need to be a

pioneering exercise, where "bleeding-edge," untested and untried

technologies are implemented to provide critical services to corporate

customers. Instead, hosting firms will use highly established and

reliable plans to standardize their infrastructure.

The Telecommunications Industry

Association, a not-for-profit trade organization representing providers

of communications and IT products and services worldwide, has begun to

define a set standard. Currently, "ANSI/TIA/EIA-942," a

telecommunications infrastructure standard for data centers, is under

development.

Intended for use by designers who need a

comprehensive understanding of data center design, the standard will

specify the minimum requirements for telecommunications infrastructure

in data centers and computer rooms ranging from single tenant

enterprise data centers to multi-tenant hosting data centers.

The topology is intended to be scaleable

to any size of data center. Once completed under TIA's peer review

process, it will include all aspects of data center design, including

cabling, network design and facility planning.

One of the objectives of the standard

will be defining equipment floor planning and equipment placement.

Topologies for telecommunication pathways and power, cooling and floor

loading requirements will also be included. The proposed standard has

adopted a hierarchical star topology for all backbone and horizontal

cabling.

The types of cables to be recognized by

the proposed standard are twisted-pair, CAT6, multi-mode optical fiber,

single mode optical fiber and 75-ohm coaxial cable. For backbone

cabling, the maximum supportable distances are application and media

dependent.

Along with equipment, the proposed

standard also will define the different workspaces within data center

facilities. A data center under the TIA standard will be divided into

multiple main spaces, which includes a computer room, a

telecommunications room, and an entrance room.

According to the plan, the computer room

will be subdivided into a main distribution area, a horizontal

distribution area, a zone distribution area and an equipment

distribution area.

The data equipment and connectivity

components will be logically located in cabinets and racks. Under the

plan, the cabling between racks will be routed under an access floor in

the 'hot aisle' or in overhead cable trays.

Access floor systems, also known as

raised floor systems, will be used in data centers that need to support

high power densities, mid-range systems, or mainframe systems.

Alternatively, overhead cable tray systems may alleviate the need for

access floors in data centers.

The plan states that overhead cable trays

can be installed in several layers to provide additional capacity.

Typical installations include two or three layers of cable trays, one

for power cables and one or two for telecommunications cabling.

The proposed standard will also provide

extensive information on redundancy, facility administration, carrier

information and demarcation points, site selection considerations,

uninterruptible power supply systems, building grounding and lightning

protection systems, and fire protection systems.

Clear specifications on all such aspects

of the data center are important, since compliance to standards

increases the perceivable value of telecommunication facilities.

An unambiguous standard will help service

providers to accommodate multiple hardware and equipment platforms, and

future-proof for new servers, network devices and connectivity

installations.

Standardizing equipment, installation and

internal processes within data centers will also ease extensibility of

a service provider's logical infrastructure and reduce the cost of

maintenance, since network architectures and logic will be somewhat

more simplified and homogeneous based upon standardized planning.

Another benefit of a single data center

standard is that it facilitates better interoperability between vendor

equipment. Eased interoperability translates into lower overhead costs,

and increased speed-to-market and efficiency of new equipment, products

and services in the data center.

The new standard will also create more

value since IT staff and management can conduct new quantitative and

qualitative measurements using the new data center standard as a guide.

TIA peer committees are presently

revising drafts of the standard, so proposed topologies outlined above

might change. Once the topology is completed, larger hosting firms,

which cater to Fortune 500 enterprises, will comply, in order to

conform to the new enterprise requirements and win new business.

Compliance will also allow large hosting

companies to implement more efficient systems in order to increase the

acquisition desirability of their facilities.

The potential future relevance of the TIA

standard makes it a development worth monitoring for the Web hosting

firm dedicated to ensuring reliability and adherence to advancing

technological standards.

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