Start with the end in mind

It is time to change the way we think about operations. Phrases like start with the end in mind may
seem like platitudes, but speak to the need for broad changes in how we think aboutand plan for
data center operations. When launched at the beginning of the design process, an operations-focused
approach ensures that the enormous capital investment made in a data center will produce the most
efficient returns possible.
by R. Lee Kirby
 Data Center
Stategy
BUSINESS Operations
OBJECTIVES Planning Ops Program
Development
As the data center industry experiences growth in both
geographic breadth and technological sophistication, it
is natural that the capital-intensive effort of designing
and building a new facility is heavily attended to. This
period of time, however, spans a very small portion of
the life of a data center.
It is intuitive to consider a projects development
in a linear manner: one thing leads to another. In a
relatively young industry, when we use terms like
design-build-operate, it is easy to slip into a pattern of
thinking of Operations as the last group to come to the
table when building a data center. In fact, the opposite
is true, and it is time to change the way we think about
operations. Phrases like start with the end in mind
may seem like platitudes, but speak to the need for
broad changes in how we think aboutand plan
fordata center operations. When launched
at the beginning of the design process, an
operations-focused approach ensures that the
enormous capital investment made in a data center
will produce the most efficient returns possible.
In order to change this kind of thinking, we can
begin with concepts that have broad acceptance and
significance in the industry and apply the principles to
operations. Whether it is a new build, retrofit, or
expansion, all design-build activity is really just a form
of change management: a point in time with actions
that must be managed to reduce risk and ensure
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Operations
Readiness
Turnover and
Transition
SUSTAINED
OPERATIONS
uptime. Furthermore, operations is an overarching
continuum that provides consistency once a data
center is in production. It provides discipline and rigor
with change management procedures. Ultimately,
ensuring uptime is the responsibility of Operations;
with that responsibility should go the authority and
the role of active participant from the very beginning.
Organizations that understand this model establish
a mindset that Operations is the customer, which
changes the communication dynamics and ensures
openness and unity of effort.
Unfortunately, too many data centers have to make
significant changes in their first year after substantial
completion. Even if the changes are not as extreme
as rebuilding infrastructure, there can be enormous
costsboth in terms of rework and ongoing loss of
efficiency. Most of these costs could be avoided if
Operations is asked to provide critical feedback on
facility maintainability during the design phase. This
input ensures that the original design considers the
long-term costs of maintenance. The Value
Engineering (VE) process has its benefits, but it
tends to focus just on the first costs of the build. If VE
is performed without Operations input, increased costs
over the life of the data center may dwarf any initial
savings realized from the VE changes.
Integrated Design-Build Project Plan implemented industry best practices. This summary
also identifies the three key milestones to achieving
A typical data center design-build process has the
Uptime Institute Tier Certifications.
following phases:
Pre-construction
Design Pre-construction Phase
Construction Data center strategy

Commissioning -- Define measures of success, service level

agreements (SLAs), key performance
Turnover
indicators (KPIs)
The timeline and key milestones for design-build do -- Concept of operations
not need to change. What does need to change is
-- Concept of maintenance
the understanding of the level of activity required
-- Vendor requirements
by the Operations group to ensure that production
Organizational alignment
environment risk is minimized. This understanding can
only be gained when Operations actively participates -- Roles and responsibilities

in the project from the very beginning.
The following roadmap illustrates an optimal
approach to the traditional design-build phases, and
expands those phases to include the key operations
activities that must be accomplished concurrently.
The integrated approach will successfully prepare the
project and the Operations team for turnover into
a production environment. The roadmap provides
context and shows the path that will ensure an
organization achieves industry standards and
experiences the full benefit of consistently
-- Organization chart (Operations, Facilities,
IT, Security)
Design Phase
Maintenance and Operations teams review design
-- Support and specialty space analysis
-- Security, access, and setbacks analysis
-- Flexibility for incremental capacity increases
analysis
-- Ease of maintenance analysis
-- Design concurrence

A successful facilities management program is the result of a carefully sequenced and managed development effort.

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Maintenance and Operations teams planning
-- Define staffing levels and shift strategy
-- Define staff qualifications and assess capabilities
-- Establish vendor/contractor SLAs and support
contracts
-- Establish equipment maintenance plans
-- Establish operations standards consistent with site
mission, reliability and availability requirements,
and industry best practices
-- Identify and acquire maintenance management
system (MMS) and other key operating systems
-- Establish asset life-cycle analysis program
Milestone:
Tier Certification of Design Documents (TCDD)
Construction Phase
Maintenance and Operations teams develop
complete program
-- Develop operations procedures: standard operating
procedures (SOPs), methods of procedure (MOPs),
and emergency operating procedures (EOPs)
-- Implement systems and processes (MMS and other
key operating systems, document repository)
-- Develop training program
-- Establish minimum shift and daily
inspection protocols
-- Develop weekly/monthly walk-through equipment
checklists
-- Establish monitoring and controls systems reports
-- Develop escalation policies and protocols including
contact lists (addressing increasing levels of
severity including alerts, events, and incidents)
-- Establish inventory of critical spare parts
and consumables
-- Develop housekeeping policy and Critical
Environment work rules
-- Develop Critical Environment work approval
and change management processes (normal,
expedited, and emergency)
-- Develop Critical Environment work approval
procedures and forms
-- Establish risk windows and allowable activities
-- Develop predictive maintenance program
Commissioning Phase
Maintenance and Operations teams readiness
-- Commission operations procedures (SOPs, MOPs,
and EOPs)
-- Critical infrastructure systems operations training
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-- Emergency operations drills and systems recovery
training
-- Safety training and on-site safety planning
-- Key vendor/contractor on-site training
-- Electrical safety training
-- Populate MMS and other key operating systems
Milestone: Tier Certification of Constructed
Facility (TCCF)
Turnover Phase
Turnover and transition to production operations
-- Review commissioning results and prioritize
punch list
-- Implement operations management program
-- Refine operations procedures (SOPs, MOPs,
and EOPs)
-- Exercise all procedures to ensure
optimal effectiveness
Milestone:
Tier Certification of Operational Sustainability (TCOS)
Data Center Strategy
The scenario: a data center is going to be built.
The organization has allocated capital budget and
is accepting bids from various entities depending on
whether it is a design-bid-build or design-build project.
At this point in time, the business requirements are
fresh in the minds of the project sponsor and the
business units, as they only recently completed the
justification exercise to get capital budget approval
for the project. Now is the time to make key decisions
on how to operate and maintain the new data center.
Key organizational decisions made at this stage will
drive subsequent activity and alignment of the design
and operations disciplines throughout the rest of the
project. Taking a holistic, operations-focused approach
from the start will ensure that the large facility
investment about to be made will be implemented in a
manner that reduces risks and increases return.
It is critical to clearly define what success looks
like to the Operations group. Their criteria will drive
service-level expectations to all stakeholders, and
the organization will use associated key performance
indicators as a quantitative means of assessment.
With the key measures defined, it is important to
thoughtfully develop a concept of maintenance and
operations based on industry best practices to achieve
recognized standards for Operational Sustainability.
These decisions will define fundamental organization
structure and determine what functions will be
provided by contractors and which will be performed
by in-house staff.
Creating this up-front structure and definition will
eliminate wasted effort in the planning stages since
contracts (internal and external) can be developed
and managed appropriately from the outset. By going
through this process, the team will make the most
essential set of decisions that lay the foundation for a
successful maintenance and operations program. This
exercise will generate a detailed responsibility matrix
that provides clarity and will drive organizational
efficiencies.
Management and Operations Planning
During the design phase, Operations has two
significant roles:
Management and Operations design review
Management and Operations planning
During design review, the Operations team must
conduct a thorough failure analysis and maintenance
analysis. Tier IV data centers require that failures
be predicted and systems designed to detect,
isolate, and contain failures. All other Tier objective
data centers should conduct failure analysis as an
important planning factor. Organizations must plan for
consequence management in the event of a failure
that leads to loss of redundancy and not an outage.
A thorough failure analysis allows the data center to
effectively prioritize emergency response procedures
and training, and may lead to design modification if
the cost is justified.
Conducting maintenance analysis determines not only
if the facility can be maintained as designed, but also
at what cost. The total cost of ownership of a data
center can be dramatically impacted if the design
fails to accommodate the most effective maintenance
practices. Once these analysis efforts are complete,
the Operations team concurs with the design, and
planning begins.
Next, the Operations team must develop operating
standards based on site mission, reliability and
availability requirements, and industry best practices.
Establish supporting contracts with vendors, put
subcontracts out to bid, and define staffing plans
based on the requirements that were decided on in the
strategy phase. Defining shifts and staff qualifications
affords the talent acquisition team time to secure the
best possible personnel resources.
If an automated maintenance management system
is chosen, this is the time to make that acquisition.
The information that will be flowing in all subsequent
phases should be entered into the system in
preparation for the production environment. It is
critical at this point to define the processes the
organization will use to record and access the
key information that is needed to maintain the
environment. Whether in the presence or absence
of an automated system, success depends on
thoughtfully engineered procedures.
Management and Operations
Program Development
The construction phase is more than just time to build.
The infrastructure design is complete and the
management and operations plan is in place. The
general contractor now focuses on building to meet
the design specifications while the Operations team
focuses on building the program as planned to meet
the uptime requirements. Both teams are going to
be very busy and must put all the key components in
place so that they are ready for commissioning.
Also during this time, write emergency operating
procedures and define the training program.
The goal is that the staff is trained to perform each
critical function on Day One, so they will need to run
through emergency response drills during
commissioning. The MMS and documentation libraries
need to be populated and version control procedures
need to be employed to ensure accuracy. Define
and document all policies, site work rules, and key
procedures with sign-off by all stakeholders. It is
critical to have change management procedures in
place to ensure coordination between the
construction team and the Operations team.
Frequently, data centers are built with some variance
from the construction documents. Some of these
changes are beneficial and some are not, so any
deviations must be reviewed by Operations.
Management and Operations Readiness
The commissioning phase is the best time to test
the critical infrastructure, test the critical operations
procedures (EOPs, SOPs, and MOPs), and train the
Operations staff. Safety is the first priority; staff should
be thoroughly trained on how to operate within
the environment and know how to respond to
any incident. All members of the team should know
how to properly use the systems that have been
implemented to accurately store and process

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operations data. While in a non-production
environment, operating procedures can be tested and
retested and used as a means of training and drilling
staff. The goal is to mature the team to the point that
reacting to an incident is second nature. Exercise key
scenarios for the most likely events with the entire
staff, so that they become proficient in taking systems
on- and off-line without any risk to personal safety or
system integrity. Having the Operations team
perform some of the commissioning activities
as further training is becoming a more common
industry practice.
Management and Operations
Turnover and Transition
The construction project has reached substantial
completion. The result of working through an
integrated design-build project approach is that the
Operations team is now trained and ready to assume
responsibility for the ongoing operations of the data
center. The organization can deploy technology
without risk and meet or exceed service levels from
Day One as a result of the careful planning,
development, training, and testing of the operations
management program.
However, even though the operations program is
ready just as construction is substantially complete,
there is still more work to be done. The construction
team has a punch list and the Operations team does
too. The first year of operations will require the
completion of standard operating procedures and
methods for routine maintenance. Up to this point,
the focus of building the program was training staff
to operate and react to incidents. Now the focus
will be on establishing a tempo and optimizing
day-to-day procedures between various stakeholders.
The data center environment is never static;
continuous review of performance metrics and vigilant
attention to changing operating conditions is critical.
Procedures may need to be refined or redefined,
training refreshed, and systems fine-tuned with a
continuous quality improvement mindset.
5 00010 A
Conclusion
However well designed a data center appears on
paper, ultimately its success stands or falls on
day-to-day operations over the lifespan of the facility.
Successful operations over the long term begins
with havingat every stage of the planning and
development processan Operations advocate who
deeply understands the integrated mesh of systems,
technology, and human activity in a data center. By
starting with the end in mind and giving Operations a
strong voice from the outset, organizations will reap
the benefits of maximum uptime, efficiency, and cost
effectiveness year after year.
About Uptime Institute
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along with its Management & Operations reviews,
FORCSS methodology, and energy efficiency
initiatives.
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