Ten commandments of a successful data center
Probably each of us has an unpleasant experience of actions, having committed which we sincerely repent of our stupidity, inattention, arrogance, but it is already too late to change something. Nowadays, technology is the price of the simplest operator error in production, the oversight of the installer, ignoring the elementary safety rules by line personnel can be tremendous. In addition, that under the threat may be the correct functioning of the production, but much more important and personal safety of people. Data centers here are no exception to the rule, rather the opposite. If classic enterprises: factories and power stations have been operating for decades, and written and unwritten rules of personnel behavior have been worked out for them, then the data centers, which have been massively built in the last decade, are not so smooth. The absence or lack of understanding of elementary norms of behavior often leads to the failure of expensive equipment, data loss and other unpleasant incidents. Further in the article we will talk on the topic of the most common reasons why abnormal situations arise in the data center and how to deal with it.
The problem of proper cabling in server rooms is a leader in damaging the information security of the data center. The use of too short cables - in pursuit of savings, the use of too long cables - the result of laziness, violation of cable markings, and even its complete absence, and of course temporary jumpers - we have to say for nothing, there is nothing more permanent than temporary. All these factors can significantly undermine the security of equipment located in server racks. In addition to problems with the logical construction of connections, scattered over the server cables can carry a purely physical threat, confusing under the feet and hands of an engineer, poorly laid cables can significantly disrupt the ventilation of the rack. In addition, the engineer will have to spend a lot of time "solving the cable puzzle", the server hardware can fail from overheating, and in the saddest cases, also cause a real fire.
')
Also one of the main reasons for the failure of server hardware is the presence of foreign objects in the server. These can be objects forgotten in the hall: tools, personal belongings, or objects that are inappropriate there. The undisputed leader among such items is food, or to be more precise - drinks. Often, data center employees, especially young ones, forget that they are dealing with equipment that is poorly protected from external factors. Coffee, tea, or any soda are wonderful conductors of electricity. Shedding the same tea on your expensive laptop, you risk getting just a bill from the workshop for its restoration, spilling a 10 kW server rack liquid, you already risk not only disabling it, but also getting seriously injured.
Power supply is one of the potentially weak points of any data center. The exact calculation of the load that the voracious equipment can create, and the redundancy of the power supplies are those supports on which the security of the data center operation stands. The larger the data center, the greater the problem can be full power redundancy. If we are talking about small "office" data centers, then there may be enough banal "bespereboynik", if you pay attention to the giant data centers that build companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, then everything is much more serious. To reserve power supply, the aforementioned companies often not only feed their offspring from different substations, but sometimes also build personal power plants. These sources must guarantee not only cheaper or environmentally friendly energy, but first of all it is uninterrupted power supply. The security level of the data center in the above context is often directly proportional to the funds invested in it.
This is a huge problem as much for small data centers as well as for their large counterparts. Industrial espionage, the revenge of a disgruntled employee, the theft of expensive server equipment, the uncontrolled access of random people who are not informed in all the nuances of the equipment's operation — these are just a small list of risks associated with unauthorized access. It is for this reason that the absolute majority of successful data centers invest substantial funds in the physical security of their equipment. Here the list of protection tools is extremely wide, from video surveillance and access control with different levels of accreditation, to banal grilles on the windows and a barn lock on the server cabinet. Sometimes the desire to protect yourself is gaining truly extreme forms, and it becomes difficult to draw a clear line between a successful marketing move and banal paranoia.
Banal negligence and laxity of employees can lead to the very kind of terrible consequences in the data center. Lack of discipline in the team, lack of due attention of managers to performers usually leads to misfortunes. A worker who has lost incentives is dissatisfied with the level of remuneration of his labor, or his long lack of career growth, even if he is technically well prepared, can cause damage, if not on purpose, to the most technically thoughtful and secure data center. Unfortunately, such risks are difficult to describe with some mathematical equation, for this reason they are not predictable and therefore dangerous.
Quite a number of important factors in the success of a data center are the quality maintenance of internal documentation. Here we are talking not only about the registration of operational information, but also about creating a full-fledged archive. Apart from the fact that competently executed documentation makes it possible to rotate staff without any special consequences, the existing archive also allows you to prepare full-fledged statistics without which it is simply impossible to plan correctly the work of the entire data center.
Despite the fact that most of the equipment in the data center is connected to the network, the infrastructure of the data center is organized in such a way as to make it possible to avoid infection of the entire equipment with a virus. To do this, there are a number of precautions, the violation of which can lead to the saddest consequences. A well-established security system against potentially unsafe software that is locally hosted on servers can become ineffective if this kind of software gets to the workstations of data center employees along with the infected USB flash drive. Office "desktops" are often used by employees not for their intended purpose, except for solving their work duties, using long work shifts to surf the Internet using workstations, all sorts of files are downloaded. What is already said about network games (Counter-Strike, CoD, StarCraft, etc.), which, among other things, are a significant factor in the infection and spread of viruses throughout the data center.
Automation of production in our time has reached great heights, this made it possible to minimize personnel expenses, as well as save the server equipment from the "human" factor. But not to forget that all automatic systems are also developed and installed by man, and this notorious “human” factor further hangs over them like the sword of Damocles. How often do data center engineers break away from their comfortable chairs and conduct physical monitoring of the farm they are entrusted to? By blindly trusting sensors and monitoring systems, staff risk losing sight of both the small and large threats to the operation of all server hardware in the data center.
You have a great data center - modern equipment, well-trained staff and the building itself is high-tech, and you want the fruit of your efforts to be seen by as many people as potential partners. It is here that you expect the most that there is no danger. Sometimes the lack of basic knowledge of safety, plus the sincere interest of visitors with multi-colored flashing lights can lead to all sorts of unpredictable situations, the direct physical influence of visitors on the equipment. An even more effect may be exacerbated if in fact your data center is not so perfect and the qualifications of employees leave much to be desired. As a result, instead of happy potential customers, you risk getting interruptions for existing ones.
You are a highly qualified and conscious data center engineer, having worked honestly on your shift, without serious accidents, you face a major drop in the network under the “curtain” of the working day. I am sure each of us had such situations when we had to stay outside the working hours to solve a suddenly arising problem, which, among other things, must also be dealt with. Having worked for 10 hours, even the most experienced and qualified employee risks instead of solving the problem to aggravate it even more. Excessive consciousness of a physically and morally tired employee may play a trick on him; it is for this reason that it is very important to properly organize working shifts and not overload employees. All global work carried out in the data center should have been planned in advance and at the beginning of the intercepted shift. The desire of management to maximize the use of the paid staff time can lead to the most unexpected consequences and, as a result, serious losses that the data center owner himself will incur in the first place.
1. Cable management
The problem of proper cabling in server rooms is a leader in damaging the information security of the data center. The use of too short cables - in pursuit of savings, the use of too long cables - the result of laziness, violation of cable markings, and even its complete absence, and of course temporary jumpers - we have to say for nothing, there is nothing more permanent than temporary. All these factors can significantly undermine the security of equipment located in server racks. In addition to problems with the logical construction of connections, scattered over the server cables can carry a purely physical threat, confusing under the feet and hands of an engineer, poorly laid cables can significantly disrupt the ventilation of the rack. In addition, the engineer will have to spend a lot of time "solving the cable puzzle", the server hardware can fail from overheating, and in the saddest cases, also cause a real fire.
')
2. Foreign objects in the server room
Also one of the main reasons for the failure of server hardware is the presence of foreign objects in the server. These can be objects forgotten in the hall: tools, personal belongings, or objects that are inappropriate there. The undisputed leader among such items is food, or to be more precise - drinks. Often, data center employees, especially young ones, forget that they are dealing with equipment that is poorly protected from external factors. Coffee, tea, or any soda are wonderful conductors of electricity. Shedding the same tea on your expensive laptop, you risk getting just a bill from the workshop for its restoration, spilling a 10 kW server rack liquid, you already risk not only disabling it, but also getting seriously injured.
3. Power outages
Power supply is one of the potentially weak points of any data center. The exact calculation of the load that the voracious equipment can create, and the redundancy of the power supplies are those supports on which the security of the data center operation stands. The larger the data center, the greater the problem can be full power redundancy. If we are talking about small "office" data centers, then there may be enough banal "bespereboynik", if you pay attention to the giant data centers that build companies such as Google, Facebook, Amazon, then everything is much more serious. To reserve power supply, the aforementioned companies often not only feed their offspring from different substations, but sometimes also build personal power plants. These sources must guarantee not only cheaper or environmentally friendly energy, but first of all it is uninterrupted power supply. The security level of the data center in the above context is often directly proportional to the funds invested in it.
4. Security issues
This is a huge problem as much for small data centers as well as for their large counterparts. Industrial espionage, the revenge of a disgruntled employee, the theft of expensive server equipment, the uncontrolled access of random people who are not informed in all the nuances of the equipment's operation — these are just a small list of risks associated with unauthorized access. It is for this reason that the absolute majority of successful data centers invest substantial funds in the physical security of their equipment. Here the list of protection tools is extremely wide, from video surveillance and access control with different levels of accreditation, to banal grilles on the windows and a barn lock on the server cabinet. Sometimes the desire to protect yourself is gaining truly extreme forms, and it becomes difficult to draw a clear line between a successful marketing move and banal paranoia.
5. Employee discipline
Banal negligence and laxity of employees can lead to the very kind of terrible consequences in the data center. Lack of discipline in the team, lack of due attention of managers to performers usually leads to misfortunes. A worker who has lost incentives is dissatisfied with the level of remuneration of his labor, or his long lack of career growth, even if he is technically well prepared, can cause damage, if not on purpose, to the most technically thoughtful and secure data center. Unfortunately, such risks are difficult to describe with some mathematical equation, for this reason they are not predictable and therefore dangerous.
6. Documenting the work of the data center
Quite a number of important factors in the success of a data center are the quality maintenance of internal documentation. Here we are talking not only about the registration of operational information, but also about creating a full-fledged archive. Apart from the fact that competently executed documentation makes it possible to rotate staff without any special consequences, the existing archive also allows you to prepare full-fledged statistics without which it is simply impossible to plan correctly the work of the entire data center.
7. Uses of workstations for other purposes.
Despite the fact that most of the equipment in the data center is connected to the network, the infrastructure of the data center is organized in such a way as to make it possible to avoid infection of the entire equipment with a virus. To do this, there are a number of precautions, the violation of which can lead to the saddest consequences. A well-established security system against potentially unsafe software that is locally hosted on servers can become ineffective if this kind of software gets to the workstations of data center employees along with the infected USB flash drive. Office "desktops" are often used by employees not for their intended purpose, except for solving their work duties, using long work shifts to surf the Internet using workstations, all sorts of files are downloaded. What is already said about network games (Counter-Strike, CoD, StarCraft, etc.), which, among other things, are a significant factor in the infection and spread of viruses throughout the data center.
8. Trust - but verify
Automation of production in our time has reached great heights, this made it possible to minimize personnel expenses, as well as save the server equipment from the "human" factor. But not to forget that all automatic systems are also developed and installed by man, and this notorious “human” factor further hangs over them like the sword of Damocles. How often do data center engineers break away from their comfortable chairs and conduct physical monitoring of the farm they are entrusted to? By blindly trusting sensors and monitoring systems, staff risk losing sight of both the small and large threats to the operation of all server hardware in the data center.
9. Temptation by tourists
You have a great data center - modern equipment, well-trained staff and the building itself is high-tech, and you want the fruit of your efforts to be seen by as many people as potential partners. It is here that you expect the most that there is no danger. Sometimes the lack of basic knowledge of safety, plus the sincere interest of visitors with multi-colored flashing lights can lead to all sorts of unpredictable situations, the direct physical influence of visitors on the equipment. An even more effect may be exacerbated if in fact your data center is not so perfect and the qualifications of employees leave much to be desired. As a result, instead of happy potential customers, you risk getting interruptions for existing ones.
10. Midnight Avral
You are a highly qualified and conscious data center engineer, having worked honestly on your shift, without serious accidents, you face a major drop in the network under the “curtain” of the working day. I am sure each of us had such situations when we had to stay outside the working hours to solve a suddenly arising problem, which, among other things, must also be dealt with. Having worked for 10 hours, even the most experienced and qualified employee risks instead of solving the problem to aggravate it even more. Excessive consciousness of a physically and morally tired employee may play a trick on him; it is for this reason that it is very important to properly organize working shifts and not overload employees. All global work carried out in the data center should have been planned in advance and at the beginning of the intercepted shift. The desire of management to maximize the use of the paid staff time can lead to the most unexpected consequences and, as a result, serious losses that the data center owner himself will incur in the first place.
Source: https://habr.com/ru/post/262625/
All Articles