TourING A Peering Point?

Internet Service Provider(s)

So you are going to tour an Internet Exchange Point/ colocation center / Internet data center for the first time.

The problem everyone faces on their first Internet Data Center tour is that you are

1)entering into a cold and noisy environment with cages enclosing equipment that doesn’t appear to have any interest in trying to escape, and
2)being shown banks of tall beige or grey boxes that you have never seen before and will never have to understand or operate, and

3) told no less than 50 discrete pieces of acronym laden information that may or may not be relevant to your use of the facility.

You will be overwhelmed. You need a conceptual model in which to place all of the information you hear on your tour.

The DrPeering clinicians toured over 70 data centers and have created a paradigm and work sheet to take along with you on your data center tours.

This is not a Data Center check list but rather a conceptual model (paradigm) to help you categorize the things you will hear on your tour; it will give you a sense for the kinds of questions that will come up and where to place the answers to those questions in the model. There are lots of in depth articles about data centers on the net.

Real Estate

Real estate - Facility Name:

Address:

Proximity to fiber - data centers with easy access to fiber means the cost of getting into the building will be lower

Sold by sq ft or by the rack or cage or private suite?

Do you provide racks or do customers ship them

Rack size? Sq Ft per rack?

$/sq ft _______________ OR ________ sq ft

$/rack _______________ for ________ racks

Right of First refusal? ________

SIZE

What is the size of the data center?

How much rentable space is there?

How much space is available?

Floor Load Capacity:

BUSINESS MODEL

Carrier Neutral -OR- Carrier sells space to customers -OR- ISP sells space to customer

(These impact who they see as the most desirable customers and impacts what you can and cannot reasonably do in the facility.)

When was building built?

Are there other locations?

What is the process for space acquisition?

Core Infrastructure and Operations

Here is where real estate becomes a workable data center with enough reliable power cooling and security to support computing and network services.

You will hear about three main support systems that all Internet Data Centers possess - use the spaces below to fill out the information you hear in each of these categories

Operations

Core Infrastructure

Real Estate

Security Systems

These sub systems control and monitor access to the facilities.

Access Control - Security and Ease of accessing your equipment

Hours and Rules for accessing the building

bag searches

scheduled in advance mandatory?

security staff - outsourced to who? company staff?

when are escorts required?

Access to colocation area mechanism?

Time to access to customer equipment? Rack lock type? Cage lock type?

Do you require an open ticket to drop ship equipment?

Mantrap ?

Badges? Signing in?

Surveillance

Cameras - external, corridors, cages, loading docks

video stored for how long?

video monitored by who?

Loading dock?

Storage area for equipment to be installed?

Freight elevator?

Wiring system layout?

EXTERIOR

Building protection? Concrete Bollards?

Fire suppression System

Heating Venting Air Conditioning (HVAC) Systems

Here you will hear about the chillers, forced air systems or raised floor systems. There is a lot of religion surrounding raised floor versus forced air and cold and warm aisles.

Power Systems

How many Generators and of what size? Where are they? Fuel tanks where? How long can they run on the fuel? How does fuel conditioning occur? Who provides refueling?

UPS Systems?

Flywheel systems?

A/C Plant - level of redundancy? 2N or 2N+1 are common

D/C Plant - level of redundancy?

Maintenance Schedules

How is power provisioned here? Is there enough power? Power per square foot available?

All Internet Data centers include some form of the following core systems:

1.Real Estate: Places to put customer equipment and support infrastructure

2.Infrastructure: Hardware and Software Systems required for data center operation including Power, Heating Cooling / Air Conditioning (HVAC), Security, etc. and monitoring equipment for the infrastructure.

3.Facilities Operations: Activities to ensure the infrastructure is operating properly.

4.Network: Support for connectivity into/out of data center (This includes both a sustainable business model and infrastructure support).

Operations

Core Infrastructure

Real Estate

Carrier Network(s)

Carrier Networks

How many carriers provide fiber or transport (circuit) services into the data center?

List of Carriers

1

2

3

4

5

Is there a meet me room for carriers? How much capacity did they bring in to service the building? Do they have expansion space - ability to increase capacity as needed for the population here?

Does the facility offer transport between other facilities where peering occurs?