Heat is the enemy of IT operations, and server room air conditioning is one of the top priorities in a data center. Your organization needs more than just a good server cooling system. It also needs a strategy for dealing with cooling system breakdowns.

Have A Plan
No matter how reliable your server room air conditioning system is, there is always the possibility it will fail. And since cooling systems are the most stressed during summer months, it is almost guaranteed to crash when you need it the most. Loss of cooling can completely shut down a data center in minutes, so IT personnel have to act fast.

A heat emergency is not the time to run around panicking. The data center should have an existing emergency plan that gives clear duties to each person. It should include a step-by-step process for getting the situation under control, from rolling in portable air conditioners up to and including the procedure for shutting the entire server farm down safely to avoid equipment damage. Everyone needs to have already been briefed on the plan so nobody is confused about duties during the emergency.

Be Detailed And Specific
Finding a generic server room air conditioning emergency plan on the internet, printing it out and slapping it into the IT department manual isn’t a solution. When the emergency comes, you’ll find many of the steps don’t apply to your organization while others are vague. Even companies that create their own plans often don’t put enough detail, leaving staff bewildered during an emergency.

For example, one common step is to shut down non-essential equipment. Which pieces of equipment are non-essential? One company might be able to shut down the email server for the day and find it merely an inconvenience, while another company might be completely unable to operate without email access. You can be sure that if you leave it to the day of the emergency, time will be wasted as IT personnel argue over which servers are essential.

Plan For The Worst
Part of your heat emergency plan is to lease spot coolers to keep critical systems running. Then, on the hottest day of the year, your overstressed server room air conditioning shuts down. You quickly find out that half the companies in the city are facing the same emergency, and all the portable air conditioning in town has already been leased out. Now what? A better idea is to buy your own portable air conditioning so it will be ready at a few minutes’ notice. It costs a little more up front, but far less than the lost business from shut down servers.

These are the kinds of contingencies to consider when creating your server room air conditioning emergency procedures. A good plan takes time and effort, but you will appreciate the work done when your servers keep running without interruption after a major cooling failure.