Weatherproofing The Data Center

Know what your skills are, and what they are not.

With ever-declining prices for servers, as well as solutions such as VoIP, businesses are seeking to crowbar more into data centers, and more data centers into smaller-size locations.

It's not just important for solution providers to understand the networking, the data center architecture and management. How about the building's wiring?

"As a VAR, I'm familiar with what type of UPSes to put in, and what power is appropriate," Pankonin said. "But I also have to be aware that there's a line in the sand where I want to refer them to an electrical engineer and an electrical architect. That's a very important thing for VARs to keep in mind."

Partnering with another company that has important, non-data center skills where the solution provider doesn't, when essential, becomes key to delivering a rounded solution to protect the data center.

Know when to bring up the topic of data center protection.

Data centers aren't created for looks, and they're not created because businesses have a lot of extra money and nothing to do with it. They are planned, purchased, configured and integrated to perform a task or tasks—like improving communications, conducting transactions, keeping track of customers, maintaining employee records and otherwise running a business.

Solution providers already spend time talking to their customers about server configurations, operating systems, middleware, firewalls, remote management, VPN access and other speeds and feeds. Condition monitoring and all its nuances might not get so much attention. But that doesn't mean it shouldn't.

"The easiest time to bring up monitoring is either after they've had a problem or when you're initially constructing the data facility," Pankonin said. "Those are the easiest times to have that conversation."

Before you set up a monitoring solution, pick an alert system you, the solution provider, can live with.

Some solution providers spend much of their time on the road between service and sales calls. Some spend much of their time in a lab, planning, testing or building out a custom solution. Others are full-time managed service professionals whose job is to keep an eye on customer uptime. Some have customers with internal IT departments, some are the customer's IT department. Whatever way you work or model your business, keep that in mind when providing a data center monitoring solution.

"Data centers have to somewhat fit into a managed service philosophy," Pankonin said. "If you are the VAR and you are determining how things are going to be monitored, you have to determine how you are going to get that type of information after the data center is built."

Know what information your customer should get, and how often.

For this report, CRNtech took a look at American Power Conversion Corp.'s NetBotz 420 data center monitoring appliance. Included in that package is software that allows a solution provider to program "escalated" alerts to ensure that a customer's management isn't notified of an event unless it's critical enough that he or she would want to receive an e-mail or an SMS text message at any hour of the day.

"We just took over for a customer last week, and their previous IT vendor used almost the exact same monitoring package we were using, but just didn't configure it correctly," Pankonin said, noting that the customer received much more alert information than was comfortable.

"Your [alert] thresholds need to be set accurately, so you and your customer get the appropriate amount of feedback and information," he said.

Know how the data center protection solution fits into the customer's ROI needs.

Pankonin and others say that ROI is a natural part of the conversation as data center buildout, configuration and management are planned. That ROI doesn't just include avoiding downtime and associated costs, but also in keeping a watchful eye on heat output in a data center (which can be a critical indicator of energy inefficiency), airflow (which can be an early tipoff to problems with cooling and fans) and physical security—a videocamera can alert an IT manager, workgroup manager, a business owner or a solution provider to risks caused by open access to a data center, employees who may not belong near a data center or other potential hazards. (Remember that propane tank?)

A $1,000 monitoring appliance could save real money down the road in lower energy costs, lower security costs and more efficiency.

Next: Two Different Monitoring Products