Data center consultants are often brought into a project to ensure the highest return on investment. Planning, designing, building or expanding a data center is complicated, time-intensive and expensive. Therefore, many companies want data center design and build experts on their team to help ensure a successful project outcome.
Well qualified
data center consultants will have managed the design and building of hundreds of facilities and have decades of experience. They can assist with all the major components of a data center project. Specifically, consultants can provide expertise in the following areas:
Pre-Design and Planning
Facility Design
Project Management
Owners Representative
Pre-Design and Planning Services for Data Center Projects
Data center consultants can help make sure projects get off to a good start. As with all types of projects, successful results depend on strong planning efforts upfront. Given the complexities involved with data center projects, companies cant afford to re-do work because it wasnt completed properly the first time. Therefore, planning helps ensure work is done correctly from the beginning.
Proper planning typically involves the following tasks:
Determining appropriate systems availability levels.
Estimating cost exposures and risk levels.
Providing detailed site evaluations and selection processes.
Identifying potential weaknesses in backup programs.
Evaluating future expansion opportunities.
Data center consultants can help companies balance many aspects of data center performance to optimize resources. For example, a trade-off exists between around-the-clock availability and operating costs. In other words, increased reliability and availability result in greater costs from capital investments and regular maintenance.
Many companies require the expertise of data center consults to help determine the costs of downtime compared to the costs of accommodating greater availability. This information helps companies make better decisions about how best to build out a data center for their particular requirements.
Facility Design for Data Center Projects
The focus on todays data center designs is energy efficiency and scalability. Data centers incorporate complex power, cooling, security, fire suppression and monitoring systems. These systems must operate in way that keeps costs in check, but also can accommodate future growth.
During facility design, data center consultants keep focused on the projects budget and schedule. All subsequent phases of the project will be dependent on the design specifications. Therefore, its critical all aspects of the project are defined in the design work.
Project Management for Data Center Projects
Project management is one of the many benefits of bringing data center consultants on board. Through professional project management, consultants will coordinate vendors and contractors, manage the acquisition and installation of all equipment, coordinate deliveries and bring data the data center online when construction is completed.
Data center consultants will make sure everything within the data center is functioning according to specifications. Reputable consultants will also provide warranties on equipment they install, as well as guaranteed response levels.
Given the huge investment owners make in data center facilities, securing expertise outside the organization is often a prudent strategy. Experienced data center consultants will focus on the details and help ensure projects are delivered on time and within budget.
