Chapter 17. Server Rooms

Server rooms are an essential design component to any successful server deployment. A server room provides shared secure space, environmental monitoring, special connectivity features, cooling, conditioned power, backup power, redundant systems, and many other features that make it easier to run and protect vital systems. Servers can be deployed in closets, small rooms, large rooms, larger rooms, incredibly large rooms the size of football fields, and entire buildings. Depending on your point of view, a small room might be called a server room; somewhere between large and larger rooms and above, people start to call those spaces data centers. These days you can stuff a closet with a dense rack of blade servers, so it is possible to put the power of what not very long ago was a mainframe into the footprint of a clothing closet. What is a server room and what is a data center is really a question of your imagination and is rather unclear these days.

Many of the principles explored in this chapter apply whether you are building out the office next door or you are going to run the next Google.com. With careful planning, it is possible to protect your systems in case of a facilities failure, to make the best use of the space that you have, and to build and budget effectively. You may not have an unlimited budget to build a data center (few people do), but after reading this chapter, you should have a better idea how to best spend the money you do have and what you might have to do to get started.