Intelligent Data Centres Issue 33 | Page 35

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Resiliency – along with many other elements – is key to the design process when it comes to building a successful data centre facility with the future in mind . Paul Christensen , General Manager Data Centres and Security , Macquarie Data Centres , discusses the primal factors that should be considered in the data centre design phase and why these are essential to meeting the evolving requirements of end-users .

Baking resiliency into data centres from day one

We are truly living in the golden age of data . The COVID-19 pandemic , ongoing lockdowns , globally distributed workforces and a digital ecosystem that demands uninterrupted availability has increased our dependence on digital platforms , with new ways we work , play and transact converging to fuel unprecedented data growth .

Never has there been a greater need for reliable facilities for corporate , government and multinational customers to securely store and manage their data , particularly when external business disruptions and cyberthreats are a reality faced by many organisations worldwide .
Unfortunately , this unprecedented data growth comes at a high cost with a rising number of cyberattacks launched against businesses and individuals . In Australia alone , the Australian Cyber Security Centre ( ACSC ) receives a cybercrime report every 10 minutes , with many others going unreported – so much so that the government has allocated US $ 1.7 billion towards combatting these threats under the Cyber Security Strategy .
However , beyond the need for physical and logical security to provide assurances to end-consumers , today ’ s customers have an evolving and expanding set of expectations regarding the locations in which their information is stored .
Sustainability , scalability , security and data centre efficiency are non-negotiable requirements in my discussions with potential customers and each are elements that cannot be afterthoughts . They need to be carefully considered and incorporated into the data centre design phase , along with appropriate consideration for future technology changes and flexibility to adapt to customer-specific reference architectures .
Ultimately , each of these elements contributes to a class of service which is reflected in the Service Levels we offer to our customers , and is supported by every element in our design , from equipment selection to the maintenance and support regime that we apply . This is why it is critical that data centres are built with the future in mind , and that resiliency is baked into each design decision from day one . www . intelligentdatacentres . com
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