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
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, it has been found by Opinium that the total hours of downtime for UK businesses was 149 million hours. This resulted in an economic loss of £12.3 billion in productivity. It is therefore important for businesses to know how to protect their server rooms and reduce potential downtime.
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.
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.
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. Research has found that 43% of server room outages are caused by power-related outages.
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.
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. 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.
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. 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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