Servers are often at the heart of today’s businesses and house the critical components of a business’s technology systems. They are usually kept in a dedicated room, called a server room. This tends to be the centre of an organisation’s technology infrastructure and any downtime in the server room can lead to serious disruptions in a business’s productivity and ability to produce revenue. For many, as long as a server is down money is being lost. It’s therefore essential for businesses to reduce any downtime in a server room. Keep reading as we discuss the best practices to help reduce downtime in a server room.
- Downtime in a Server Room
- 7 Ways to Reduce Downtime in a Server Room
- How Effective is Server Room Monitoring in Reducing Server Downtime?
- How Much Does Server Room Monitoring Cost?
- Reduce Server Downtime with RMS
Downtime in a Server Room
Servers help facilitate many major aspects of a business, such as file storage, customer databases, internet commerce, print services and much more. They are essential for the running of a business that uses any type of technology system and downtime in a server room can lead to productivity slowing or evening stopping, costing a business’s profitability. Within just one year, UK businesses lost a staggering £21.3 billion due to internet outages alone in 2023, according to a report compiled by Sonar IT, demonstrating the dramatic financial impact of system failure. It is therefore important for businesses to know how to protect their server rooms and reduce potential downtime, an essential step in ensuring business continuity and one that vastly improves efficiency in facility management.
The sheer volume of data now processed by modern businesses necessitates a proactive approach to monitoring, especially given the new governmental focus on resilience, as the UK government designated data centres as critical national infrastructure in late 2024. This new framework, detailed by Travers Smith, increases the regulatory stakes for any entity that owns or operates data centre infrastructure, reinforcing the importance of rigorous security and environmental monitoring. Protecting these environments goes far beyond simple rack maintenance; it now requires sophisticated technological oversight. This is why many organisations are looking at non-security monitoring services to provide an added layer of operational resilience, offering key advantages when combining fire, security, and environmental monitoring systems.
7 Ways to Reduce Downtime in a Server Room
1. High-Quality Equipment
Investing in high-quality equipment within your server room will help to prevent equipment failure and therefore reduce downtime in the long run. Cooling systems, high-quality servers and other equipment can be expensive, but they tend to reduce the risk of equipment failure in server rooms and tend to have an extended lifespan. These initial costs outway the potential for increased downtime you may experience with lower-quality equipment.
Beyond the quality of the servers themselves, proactive management of the environment is critical. This involves continuous monitoring of temperature, humidity, and even the efficiency of the air conditioning monitoring systems. A significant percentage of major outages are now attributed to cooling system failure, and with the trend towards smart buildings, operators need to understand how to monitor these complex systems effectively. Furthermore, for safety-critical environments, adhering to monitoring compliance standards is non-negotiable, ensuring both regulatory adherence and operational longevity for all hardware.
2. Lock Server Room Doors
Ensuring the doors to server rooms are securely locked is a guaranteed way to reduce server room downtime. This is because downtime is often caused by human error above anything else, either done with malicious intent or by accident. Locking the doors ensures physical access must be authorised by a senior employee. Remote site access control systems, often managed from an Alarm Receiving Centre, provide a modern, auditable solution to ensure only authorised personnel can gain entry, significantly reducing the risk of accidental or malicious intrusion. This physical security works hand-in-hand with electronic intruder monitoring to create a comprehensive layer of defence.
3. Restrict User Access
Another way to reduce downtime in a server room is to restrict user access on the server. Only allow a limited number of qualified individuals administrative access to the entire server, whilst restricting all other users to only the files and systems that they need to carry out their role. This way, the risk of server tampering is reduced, as is downtime and disruption to the business.
4. Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS)
Implementing an uninterruptible power supply (UPS) to your server room ensures that there is always a source of power to the servers and equipment in the event of a power failure. Many UPSs also manage power surges and spikes that could damage server room equipment, thus preventing downtime in server rooms. According to Uptime Institute’s Annual Outage Analysis, power-related outages account for more than half (54%) of major-impact data centre outages globally, reinforcing the vital role of a robust UPS.
5. Maintenance Checks & Cleaning
Being on top of maintenance checks and the cleaning of a server room can prevent downtime. It ensures that all equipment is kept in good condition and that no dust or other material is accumulating, leading to overheating and faults or failure of the equipment, which will then result in servers being out of action. Checking that cooling systems are working properly and regularly replacing any damaged hardware is also recommended to prevent downtime in a server room.
6. Disaster Recovery Plan
Having a disaster recovery plan in place is essential if uncontrollable downtime is experienced, due to a natural disaster or cyber-attack. The plan ensures that the amount of downtime experienced is minimised and includes backup systems, data storage and recovery processes. The plan should outline the individuals, their roles and responsibilities in the event of the ‘disaster’. The recovery plan should also be regularly practised to ensure it is effective. Modern disaster recovery must increasingly account for sophisticated cyber-attacks; therefore, understanding the role of cybersecurity in alarm and CCTV monitoring and establishing key backup protocols are now crucial elements of a resilient plan.
7. Professional Server Room Monitoring
A professional server room monitoring contract will also effectively prevent downtime in a server room. This consists of a third-party monitoring company connecting to the server equipment and relevant technology systems, and even systems within the actual server room, such as CCTV, and monitoring them for various event changes. We are able to integrate network-level checks via SNMP monitoring, providing deeper insight into the health and performance of the technology infrastructure itself. These could be:
- System faults
- Offline servers
- Temperature fluctuations
- Disk space issues
- Unauthorised access to the server room
If something does occur, the monitoring company will be automatically notified and will carry out the agreed procedure, whether that be contacting the keyholder or even contacting the emergency services if necessary. This allows IT teams to take action straight away before it leads to any downtime. Our expertise in non-security monitoring means we focus on both the physical security and the crucial environmental factors that keep your IT running smoothly.
How Effective is Server Room Monitoring in Reducing Server Downtime?
Server room monitoring is an effective way to prevent downtime in a server room. This is because it can detect and notify a business about any potential issues with their server room in real time. This is especially important during out-of-business hours, when there may not be an employee on-hand to discover or deal with the issue themselves. For critical alerts that require human intervention, our comprehensive call handling services ensure that the right personnel are notified immediately, minimising the window for potential downtime. Server room monitoring is therefore considered an essential tool in preventing server room downtime and is a worthwhile investment for many businesses, especially those that operate online or are large-scale organisations.
How Much Does Server Room Monitoring Cost?
Server room monitoring can vary in price depending on the business, site and scale of the server room and the equipment within it. We recommend that you get in touch with the RMS team, who can discuss your needs, understand your business and provide you with a free, no-obligation quote.
Reduce Server Downtime with RMS
At RMS, we can help businesses reduce downtime in a server room with our professional server room monitoring service. NSI gold approved and with a category 2 alarm receiving centre, we are a reliable, honest and customer-first monitoring company that is trusted by some of the top security providers in the UK.
Get in touch today for a free quote.
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