Overview

Designing a data center can be a daunting and complicated process. There are many considerations
and decisions that ultimately impact the cost to build, operate and scale the data center.

10 Steps to Holistic
Data Center Design
Michael Salvador
Technical Solutions Manager
for Data Centers at Belden

Table of Contents
Overview . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1
Step 1: Including All Players . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 1, 2
Step 2: Setting Ground Rules . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 2
Step 3: Determining Availability & Redundancy . . . 3
Step 4: Gathering Requirements . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 3
Step 5: Balancing CAPEX and OPEX . . . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Step 6: Selecting the Right Equipment . . . . . . . . . . . 4
Step 7: Designing Equipment Areas . . . . . . . . . . . . . 5
Step 8: Designing the Overall Space . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6
Step 9: Constructing and Commissioning . . . . . . . . 6

In the past, IT departments provided an estimate of

the equipment and power needs required for their
various systems. Many of these estimates were either
inaccurate speculations based on current needs with
no forethought given to the IT roadmap and business
growth, or they were overinflated based on worsecase scenarios. Facilities then used these estimates to
either build exactly what was requested or to once
again overinflate the design in attempts to protect
themselves. This outdated process resulted in large
inefficient data centers that were costly to operate
and virtually impossible to upgrade.
The rising cost to construct and operate a data center calls for a better approach to data center
design. A holistic design approach provides significant benefit to data center managers, facilities,
customers and the business as a whole.
A central aspect of successful holistic design involves carefully considering all of the variables with
an eye on operational expenditure (OPEX) over the life of the data center, not just on the capital
expenditure (CAPEX) to build the data center in the first place. Holistic design must also account
for business growth and evolving technology, incorporating systems and innovative technologies
that ensure an agile, scalable and highly robust data center that supports both current and future
needs.
Successful holistic data center design requires following key steps that essentially take into
account all business requirements, technology innovations, and energy and operational savings,
while identifying and eliminating any ineffective decisions and operational waste.

Step 10: Ongoing Post-Construction Review . . . . . . 6

Conclusion . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 6

Step 1:
Including All Players
In most business environments, boards of
directors or C-level executives formulate
a strategic business plan with goals based
on customer feedback, market conditions,
opportunities and corporate vision. These goals
are communicated to various business units,
who in turn develop plans and requirements to
meet the goals. Whatever the business type,
virtually all of the requirements identified to
meet the business plan involve some form
of IT-related service or resource that must
ultimately be supported by the data center.
Consequently, the data center has become a
catalyst for business and a vital part of the
business ecosystem.

Once each business unit identifies their

requirements, IT departments review those
needs and identify the technologies that
enable business units to successfully carry
out their plans. IT must then determine the
equipment, power and space required to
support the technologies. Facilities then use
this information to establish their own list of
requirements needed to support ITall while
keeping operational costs in check. The end
result enables the business units and the
strategic business plan to either succeed or
fail.

Involving all players of the business ecosystem executives, business units, IT and facilities in
the early design phase identifies the actual requirements and future business direction needed to
properly design the data center. Trusted advisors and outside design consultants and contractors
should also be invited to the discussion. During this process, published meeting minutes should
be distributed to all players, and recap meetings should be held at regular intervals. Primary and
alternate representatives should be picked from every team, and the overall success of the project
should be part of their responsibilities.
While teams can vary from business to business, following is typical list of the players involved in
successful holistic data center design:
Project Sponsor Typically this should be
a C- level person (i.e., CIO or CTO) or other
business level executive.
Project Manager Depending on the
overall scope, project management should
likely be this players sole responsibility. The
project manager is the overseer of meetings
and the individual responsible for keeping
the project and discussions on track. The
project manager can be internal to the
company or part of an outside architectural
and engineering team.
Business Unit Representatives This could
be one or multiple persons responsible for
relating their business unit requirements
and roadmap of future direction.
IT Technologists These individuals can
include networking (i.e., LAN and WAN)
teams, server teams for each operating
system, storage area network (SAN) teams
and data center support teams.

Facilities Management Any area of

facilities operations and maintenance that is
applicable should be included in the process,
including security, real estate and property
management.
Purchasing/Procurement These are
individuals that negotiate all aspects of the
data center purchases.
Outsourced Services Whether an
architectural and engineering firm,
individual consultant, general contractor
or integrator (or a combination thereof),
most organizations employ outside help at
various times during the design process.
Engaging these individuals depends on
an organizations resources, skill level and
project scope. However, to remain cost
effective, organizations need to keep
mark-ups and change orders to an absolute
minimum. For larger projects, the customer

may bid the project as a whole with an

established percentage over cost to the
general contractor, rather than dealing with
separate subcontractor bids and potential
surprises. This practice also puts onus on
the general contractor to fully participate
in the design process and understand all
requirements, allowing only customerinitiated change orders to be billed and
significantly lowering contingency budgets
from as much as 15% to as low as 2%.
Trusted Advisors These individuals are
typically expert representatives from
vendors and manufacturers who can help
with the design process surrounding their
specific solutions (i.e., switches, cabling,
power and cooling solutions). Including
these individuals in the process is at the
discretion of each discipline.

Step 2:
Setting Ground Rules
While setting ground rules may seem like a daunting, political and sometimes ugly task, it can help ensure respect
for all players and professionalism that will go a long way in creating a superior product and successful outcome.
Remember the following tips when moving ahead with plans for a holistic data center design:
All players should check their ego at the door, setting aside
preconceived notions about the project and remaining open to any
and all suggestions. Dont take it personally all decisions should be
based on the business needs and objectives.
All players should have the ability to question or provide input on
any aspect of the project, including areas outside their realm of
responsibility and expertise. Sometimes the best ideas stem from
questions or suggestions from those outside of a discipline.
All players should have a vote on decisions. While the discipline
expert should have the final say, they must be able to back their
decisions with solid evidence and information. The phrase, Because
I said so is not reason enough to override the entire team.

Using broad brush strokes to define aspects such as business

requirements, redundancy, technology, risk adversity, and past means
and methods should not be allowed.
All aspects are on the table to be dissected and discussed. Out-ofthe-box thinking and solutions should be encouraged and discussed
from all players.
Always consider what is important to the business and how it affects
the companys bottom line, reputation and ability to meet the goals
set forth in the strategic plan.

Step 3:
Determining Availability & Redundancy
Understanding and determining the data center availability and
redundancy is a critical part of the holistic design process, and one that
can significantly impact cost. Critical to this is determining which of the
Uptime Institutes tier ratings best suits the business needs.
Tier 1: Non-redundant capacity components with an availability of
~99.671% and 28.8 hours of downtime per year
Tier 2: Tier 1 + redundant capacity components with an availability
of ~99.741% and 22 hours of downtime per year
Tier 3: Tier 1 + Tier 2 + dual-powered equipment and multiple
uplinks with an availability of ~99.982% and 1.6 hours of
downtime per year.
Tier 4: Tier 1 + Tier 2 + Tier 3 + all components fully fault-tolerant
including uplinks, storage, chillers, HVAC systems and servers with
everything dual-powered and an availability of ~99.995% with 0.4
hours of downtime per year

Many businesses believe they need 100% uptime, 365 days a year, 24
hours per day essentially Tier 4. This may or may not be true for your
business; but the initial cost to build a data center at each tier must be
considered. Following are some conservative estimates of cost increases
from tier to tier.
Tier 1 to Tier 2: ~ 30% increase in project CAPEX
Tier 2 to Tier 3: ~ 50% increase in project CAPEX
Tier 3 to Tier 4: ~ 22% increase in project CAPEX
Big business with enormous data centers often create multiple data center
halls that each meet a specific tier classification for right size availability
and redundancy. This tactic can save on construction costs and allows a
business to achieve lower operational cost.
More detailed information on the data center tier ratings can be found by
visiting the Uptime Institutes website, www.uptimeinstitute.com.

Step 4:
Gathering Requirements
When it is time to start gathering the
requirements for the data center design, there
are a few points to consider.
First of all, it is important to keep an eye on
what the requirements will be once the data
center actually goes live ; not on what the
requirements are today. Each business unit
should communicate their 3 to 5 year plan for
growth IT should understand each equipment
manufacturers roadmap for this time period.
In addition, anything that will ultimately be
virtualized, outsourced to a service provider
or moved to the public cloud should not be
included in the requirements.

The next step is to create a redundancy and

dependency grid for each application and
system. This is an excellent tool for ascertaining
the size, space, step functions for expansion, tier
classification(s) and dependencies required for
each application and system. The grid can get
rather large and complicated; but it will provide
cost saving to the company in the long run by
preventing over designing the data center. The
redundancy and dependency grid can also help
determine the growth of the data center and
allow for a more modular approach to building
the data center.

Step 5:
Balancing CAPEX and OPEX
When selecting the latest IT equipment or method to power or cool the data center, it is important
to take an approach that balances total cost to build (CAPEX) versus the total cost of operating
the data center (OPEX). For example, it is not wise to select an energy-saving technology without
considering the cost to operate and maintain the technology. Following are questions to answer
when selecting a technology for the data center:
What additional training or people will be required to operate the technology?
What are the costs related to maintenance and upkeep?
What is the lifespan of the equipment and how does it affect my depreciation expense?
Closely examining CAPEX and OPEX helps to make informed, intelligent choices and if necessary,
provides the reasoning for spending more up front to ultimately achieve operational savings.

Step 6:
Selecting the Right Equipment
Determining the most efficient servers with the
most efficient power supplies is an important
step to holistic data center design. Examining
the power consumption of the servers and
finding the sweet spot for number and speed
of the CPUs, memory and correct sizing of the
power supply is part of this process.
Selecting the correct platform to support a
specific application is also important. How an
application uses a server must be understood
to effectively balance energy savings and
performance. For example, some applications are
input/output (I/O) intense and may need a server
that has lower compute processing capabilities.
On the other hand, some applications may
require more compute processing and less I/O.
Another factor is power supply size. Selecting
a power supply that is too large will not be as
efficient as one that is sized correctly to support
the server during normal operation with some
extra capacity when needed.
This same reasoning should be applied to all
IT equipment. Finding the proper fit for the
equipment will provide significant operational
savings for the data center. Blindly standardizing
on a single system without regard for energy
consumption can lead to higher operational cost.
Obviously, IT must also weigh cost efficiencies
with the ability to support various makes and
models of equipment along with technology
changes and requirements moving forward.

Step 7:
Designing Equipment Areas
Whether the data center site has been selected or not, there are several
philosophies when it comes to deciding how the equipment areas of the
data center should be built . As discussed previously, tier level support is
part of this equation. Some key points to consider are cable plant design
and limitations in relation to switch location, business unit pods or shared
pods, cabinet design and who will be allowed to perform moves, adds and
changes in the data center. These points need to be tailored to meet the
needs of the business.
Understanding cable plant technology
and capabilities is a key component when
designing the cable plant layout. Following
are questions to answer when determining
the cable plant:
Does the business require high bandwidth
capabilities?
What network topology design will
be deployed (i.e., fabric switching or
traditional switching)?
What are the advantages and implications
of using certain cable media types?
What are the distance limitations of the
data center design?
What configuration will be used for
access level switching (i.e., top of rack,
end or row, middle of row or centralized)?
What will be required in the future?
When designing the data center, avoid
exclusive cabinets and pods of equipment.
Having a standardized configuration for
a cabinet or pod provides benefits such
as creating a specialized customer part
number with a manufacturer or distributor,
and ease of budgeting and ordering for
future expansion. The configuration can be
reviewed and adjusted when technology
changes occur. It is also smart to look for

ways to eliminate on-site construction labor,

shipping material disposal and transportation
costs by taking advantage of manufacturer
or distributor services to pre-configure as
many components as possible. Prior to any
request for pricing, make sure to inform
contractors of the use of these services or
any other labor-saving technology, such as
pre-terminated cables.
The easiest place to start is with a basic
server cabinet. Using the data from the
requirements gathering phase, determine
what the cabinet will look like.
Considerations might include:
Width, depth and number of RU spaces
Type of doors (i.e., single or split)
Cable entry (i.e., top or bottom)
Ability to modify the cabinet or re-deploy
as another type of cabinet
Power distribution unit (PDU) size,
intelligence, type and number of outlets
Cable management
Equipment positioning
Cabinet color
These same considerations apply for
networking cabinets, storage cabinets and
almost any other cabinet used to house IT

equipment. Keeping the number of types

of cabinets to a minimum can help simplify
design and expansion of the data center.
By deploying a modular approach using as many
standardized cabinets as possible, the data
center becomes industrialized and predictable
with better port and space utilization. Modular
design involves planning for the entire space,
power and cooling requirements based on the
companys growth over the life of the facility.
The design is broken into modules that can be
added as the business requirements evolve. All
shared infrastructure should be sized with the
absolute final design in mind it is important
to understand that modules will need to be
plugged into this infrastructure with little or no
interruption of services as growth occurs. This
allows for better cost efficiencies and ease of
operation.
When designing equipment areas, DCIM is ideal
for what if scenario planning. Once the data
center is up and running, DCIM will also support
asset inventory, cable plant connectivity, and
power management and reporting. While it
can seem rather early in the process to select
a DCIM package, it can be a time consuming
process to ensure that the package meets all
requirements needed to serve the business. It
also takes a significant amount of time to set up
the DCIM templates and standard information to
be tracked.

In summary, apply standardization, modularization and industrialization to as many components and pieces of the data center as possible. Understand the
future applications and technology that will likely be deployed, and build in adaptability and flexibility to support them where possible. If you stay ahead
of the curve and begin planning the pods or modules that will be built, it can allow for quick rollout of the IT equipment and the ability to double check
calculations prior to construction. Also try to maximize the power load within a pod or equipment area before building out the next module. This allows
the facility to operate at the maximum possible energy efficiency.

Step 8:
Designing the Overall Space
With the requirements determined, IT can then present their requirements
to the rest of the team and begin discussions to finalize power, cooling
and space requirements. If a space has not been selected, this information
can be useful for identifying potential sites or spaces. If the space has
been selected, discussions begin to review the types of power distribution,
cooling, economization and containment. During these discussions, full team
participation is imperative. Adjustments and compromises will occur; but
when the full design is completed, every player should understand what is
being proposed and built. There should be a sign-off on the design from
each team leader and other key participants in the project.

Step 9:
9
Constructing and Commissioning
Regular team meetings should occur during construction and
commissioning. Invite the various leaders and supervisors of all involved
trades to these meetings. It is critical that the design team attends these
meetings. Detailed status and problem reporting should occur to keep
everyone apprised of the project, coordinate overlapping trades and
provide a team atmosphere for the project. During this phase, be careful
of scope creep and changes to the design. The same holistic principles
should take place to resolve any design problems and construction
conflicts that arise.

Step 10:
Ongoing Post-Construction Review
After the data center has gone live, it is
important to continually review which
techniques, technologies and strategies
are performing as expected. For example,
determine how successfully or unsuccessfully
an energy-savings strategy is performing.

In reviewing, also consider what the team

would do differently as the data center scales
out or for the next data center build. Regular
data center capacity discussion meetings
are also important so that the next phases
of data center construction are properly

planned. These same meetings should

include all of the internal team members and
select outside team members as necessary.
Discussion should also include status
regarding any new business initiatives that
can impact the data center.

Conclusion
The costs of building and operating a data center can quickly skyrocket if proper analysis and refinement by various business units and outside
expertise are not made part of the design process. Utilizing a holistic approach to data center design takes the guesswork out of trying to determine
the requirements, provides construction and operational cost savings and it offers a true sense of involvement to all players who directly or
indirectly use the services of the data center.

Belden Technical Support 1.800.BELDEN.1 (1.800.235.3361)

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Copyright 2013, Belden Inc.

www.belden.com
Holistic Data Center Design | WP_ECOS_BDC_0913_A_AG