Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability Assessment of Data Center
Reliability, Availability, and Maintainability (RAM) Study of Data Centres
Performing a RAMS (Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Safety) study is crucial for businesses operating in critical environments. It helps devise operating procedures and emergency response plans that align with business objectives. Facility Managers must work with stakeholders to develop business-level agreements, understand design intent, and identify gaps concerning the governing standards, best practices, design assumptions and estimates. Operations and maintenance teams should conduct a Business Risk Analysis to acknowledge stakeholders and develop a risk management program.
This article provides an overview of the Dependability assessment program for a Data Centre and highlights gaps commonly observed in new and legacy Data Centres alike.
Data Centre Business Context
The criticality of an enterprise data centre is typically evaluated through a comprehensive failure cost impact analysis that considers the immediate financial impact of any failure, the consequential losses that may be incurred, and the long-term effects on the company’s brand reputation. According to surveys conducted by reputable research firms, the average direct cost impact per incident of Data centres ranges from a few hundred thousand to millions of USD. The leading causes of failures in data centres are power interruptions, human error and cooling system failures. It has been reported that approximately 80-90% of Data Centres have experienced severe operational failures in any given five-year tenure, resulting in not just suboptimal end-customer experience but a long-term negative impact on brand image that can be difficult to recover from.
Dependability Assessment
In the context of a data centre, ensuring that the infrastructure is dependable and meets the expected levels of service resilience under normal and emergency operating conditions is crucial. It is also a pathway to significant improvements and cost optimisation. The key dependability attributes, including Reliability, Availability, Maintainability, and Safety, need to be assessed, analysed, and reviewed in collaboration with stakeholders to achieve these benefits.
The dependability of mission-critical infrastructure is contingent upon several factors, including, but not limited to, the locational attributes, architectural and structural features of the building infrastructure, support logistics for operations and maintenance, obsolescence of building systems and subsystems, and the competency of the maintenance team. The Disaster Recovery Business Continuity plan must be tested periodically in a simulated doomsday environment.
It is crucial to ensure that the organisation complies with all relevant statutory and regulatory rules of local and national authorities, in addition to validating assumptions and estimates. This involves obtaining the necessary permits and licenses to operate and complying with all relevant laws and regulations governing its operations.
To ensure that the organisation’s operations run smoothly and efficiently, logistics such as procurement and stock management, local transport, building architectural and structural conditions, and environmental sustainability must be supported. By optimising these logistical processes, the organisation can reduce costs, improve efficiency, and enhance the reliability and dependability of its operations.
Overall, taking a holistic approach to these various aspects of organisational management enables continual improvement of dependability. This helps ensure that the organisation is well-positioned to meet the needs of its customers and stakeholders over the long term.