Organizations spend millions of dollars and many months of effort to design and build a new data center facility, yet too often planning for how that data center will actually operate is an afterthought. The impacts of this oversight are significant: --If the operations team isn't prepared to go live on Day 1, facilities sit idle, losing revenues by the minute. --Single design decisions that don't factor in day-to-day operations can add hundreds of unnecessary man-hours per year to data center maintenance costs. To ensure that the uptime and business goals of the data center are met, operations planning needs to begin early on. A "Start With The End In Mind" approach allows you to increase efficiency, avoid costly operating errors, and ensure that the large capital investments made in a facility yield the most efficient ROI.

1. Start With The End In Mind
R. Lee Kirby,
Eric M. Carter, PE
Chief Technology Officer
Uptime Institute
Senior Technical Manager
Balfour Beatty Construction
Mission Critical
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2. Start With The End In Mind
Uptime Institute research and field experience confirms
• Data center operations start before the conceptual design
phase of construction
• Data center operations continue to serve as the source of
continuity for knowledge management and transition to
production
Why an Operations Focus?
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Increase return on investment
Increase uptime
Increase data center efficiency
Reduce costs
Reduce risks
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3. Start With The End In Mind
Bring Operations in from the beginning
Design
build
operate is misleading
Design-build (expand, retrofit) are all point-in-time, nested
functions of change management
Change is constant—but a planning continuum that
includes operations will:
• Mitigate risk of disruption
• Ensure reliability standards are not compromised by changes
Change management lets you avoid rather than respond
Value engineering in isolation from operations can leave
ongoing legacy of increased costs
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4. It’s a Journey—Not a Destination
Develop and test EOPs when commissioning new
systems
= decreased time to restore normal operations after an
incident
Preparation (training and drills) for catastrophic events
= the difference between an incident and an outage
Operations is unlike other aspects of project development
• Not a one-time set up
• Regular assessments must be ongoing
Certifications are a benchmark, not the destination
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7. Roadmap to Success: PRECON
Data center strategy
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Define measures of success, SLAs, KPIs
Concept of operations
Concept of maintenance
Vendor requirements
Organizational alignment
• Roles and responsibilities
• Organizational chart (operations, facilities, IT, security)
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8. In Practice: PRECON
New Technology (NBAD – Abu Dhabi)
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UPS technology
New technology vs. staff experience
Vendor support
Parts availability
Major Maintenance Efforts
(Confidential – RTP, NC)
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Battery replacement
Opened vendor options
Reduced critical shutdowns and rentals to a single MOP
Saved approx. $120K in CAPEX by moving MOP forward
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10. Roadmap to Success: DESIGN
Maintenance and Operations Design Review
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Support and specialty space analysis
Security, access, and setbacks analysis
Flexibility for incremental capacity increases analysis
Ease of maintenance analysis
Design concurrence
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11. Roadmap to Success: DESIGN
Maintenance and Operations Planning
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Establish vendor/contractor SLAs and support contracts
Define staffing levels and shift strategy
Define staff qualifications and assess capabilities
Establish equipment maintenance plans
Establish operations standards consistent with site mission,
reliability and availability requirements, and industry best
practices
• Identify and acquire MMS and other key operating systems
• Establish asset life-cycle analysis program
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12. In Practice: DESIGN
Maintenance Access (Confidential Client – UT)
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Battery maintenance
Specific equipment
Access around racks
Saved 2 weeks and 4 hours / maintenance effort
Vendor and CX Spec Development (SAS – NC)
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Chiller selection (vendor support feedback)
Quick start testing and timing
Identified MOP tests for CX
Identified staff roles and responsibilities
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14. Roadmap to Success: CONSTRUCTION
Management and Operations Program Development
• Develop operations procedures (SOPs, MOPs, and 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)
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15. Roadmap to Success: CONSTRUCTION
Management and Operations Program Development
• 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
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16. In Practice: CONSTRUCTION
Testing and Script Development (BB&T - NC)
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BMS Sequence tweaks (pumps)
Critical MOP development > EOP development
SOP and EOP Training
Maintenance planning
Organize documentation
Avoided 1 shutdown ($$)
Method of Procedure
(MOP) Form
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18. Roadmap to Success: COMMISSIONING
Maintenance and Operations Readiness
• Commission operations procedures (SOPs, MOPs, and
EOPs)
• Critical infrastructure systems operations training
• 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
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19. In Practice: COMMISSIONING
Testing / Training (SAS – NC)
• Local utility issues
• Modified commissioning scripts to include fault testing from
other facility issues on campus
• Training vendors and 2nd shift staff
Timing (BB&T – NC)
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Thermal storage discharge
Thermal storage recovery
“A” to “B” plant change over process (manually)
Made major modification to storage recovery based on
manual options timing
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21. Roadmap to Success: TURNOVER
Turnover and Transition
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Review commissioning results and prioritize punch list
Conduct operational readiness assessment
Implement operations management program
Refine operations procedures (SOPs, MOPs, and EOPs)
Exercise all procedures to ensure optimal effectiveness
Tier Certification of Operational Sustainability (TCOS)
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22. In Practice: TURNOVER
Transition to Operations – MOST OVERLOOKED
• Good & Bad handoffs:
– SAS was GREAT – heavily involved throughout entire process
– Confidential Healthcare Client – not involved until L5 CX = lot of
“warranty” calls & general system operations questions.
• Training starts during design & procurement – reduced
learning curve at turnover
• Ops & security coordination training
– Alarms
– Response testing & coordination
• SOP, MOP, & EOP documentation organization refinement
– (SAS) BIM model was abandoned for data base system
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23. A Bridge Between Business Objectives
and Sustained Operations
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24. Summary – Start With The End In Mind
The End is Just the Beginning
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Regular reviews lead to discovery
Discovery leads to learning
Learning leads to change
Change leads to improvement
Start with the end in mind and you will
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Increase return on investment
Increase uptime
Increase data center efficiency
Reduce costs
Reduce risks
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25. Questions?
For More Information Contact:
R. Lee Kirby
lkirby@uptimeinstitute.com
+1 425.241.0088
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