Your business runs on its data, and without an infrastructure to support your operations, your productivity will be dead in the water. Most businesses choose to host their data on servers, and if you know anything about these complex pieces of machinery, you know that managing and maintaining them can be an involved process. Let’s go over some best practices to ensure you manage your server infrastructure appropriately.
Store Your Servers in a Clean and Controlled Environment
Just like other machinery, server units tend to generate a lot of heat, meaning that if you throw a bunch of them in a confined space, like a closet, it’s going to get pretty toasty in there. Instead of letting them overheat and ruin themselves over time, we recommend storing them in an air-conditioned environment where you can control the temperature and humidity. This will help to ensure that they last for as long as possible. You also need to keep the space clean, as dust can accumulate around stationary objects. Be sure to keep things tidy if you want to optimize your server’s lifespan.
Ensure Your Servers are Protected
For the purpose of this tip, you can imagine the word “protected” to mean a couple of different things. For one, your server room should only be accessed by authorized personnel; this means that the average employee has no reason to ever enter it, as even the slightest misconfiguration could be detrimental to your infrastructure setup. Secondly, your servers should be hooked up to uninterruptible power supplies, or UPSes, so as to maintain consistent power even in the most dire of circumstances. These devices also prevent your servers from being struck by power surges and thus rendered inoperable.
Keep the Space Organized
Finally, you want your server space to be nice and orderly so your IT workers can easily navigate it. Make sure that wires are properly stored and cables are labeled so that your team can take care of maintenance in the easiest manner possible. Furthermore, you should ensure that your workers have enough space to do their jobs well; your server room should not just be a random closet in your office, rather it should be an open room with plenty of space for maintenance, device setup, and so on.
Don’t Want to Design a Server Room? Let Us Handle the Challenge!
If all of the above sounds like a lot to control, manage, and maintain, you’re not wrong. Managing a server room can be a challenge, especially for small businesses with limited time, resources, and staffing. This is why many small businesses choose to outsource the responsibility of infrastructure management and maintenance to a third party. With the help of a managed service provider, you can maintain a server room, or better yet, outsource the hosting of your infrastructure entirely.
Voyage Technology can host your server infrastructure for you in a secure, off-site data center where it can be closely monitored and maintained for maximum efficiency and care. To learn more about what we can do for your organization, reach out to us at 800.618.9844.
