Determining the Viability of the Project

There are times when too many compromises must be made to make the data center project viable . It might be something obvious (you can't get enough power from the local power company or there are frequent flooding problems), or it might be a number of small factors that, when looked at collectively, show that the project is a bad risk. Consider the following possible constraints on the project:

• Inadequate budget

• Retrofit problems such as grounding , cable routing, inadequate floor to ceiling height, no way to set up seismic restraints, etc.

• Better business decision to use co-location or ISP, if only temporarily

• Inadequate pool of qualified employees

• Overly expensive location

• Inadequate district or too remote

• Inadequate or inappropriate space

• Inadequate power. Can't connect to separate parts of the grid for redundancy

• Inadequate cooling capacity

• Inadequate ISP service

• Local building codes, insurance, or fire regulations are too restrictive

• Too many weather or seismic problems

• High history of fires

Most of these problems have to do with the inadequacies of the location. For more information, see Chapter 5, "Site Selection."