The Ergonomic Data Center: Save Us from Ourselves

Overview

This article is an opinion piece by Chris Crosby published in Data Center Knowledge in 2014. Its starting point is the observation that most outages are attributed to human error. Crosby therefore argues that facilities should be designed to reduce the opportunities for operator mistakes, in other words to make mistakes harder.

The author focuses on maintainability and lists concrete recommendations. He asks for front access to equipment such as CRAH units for maintenance. Colour-coded and labelled conduit throughout speeds troubleshooting. He suggests demanding detailed operating procedures, sequences of operation and settings at turnover rather than a few pages. These recommendations aim to strengthen the transfer of knowledge between design and operations.

Crosby also recommends setting explicit adjacency rules for the loading dock, storage and staging relative to the white space. The logistics flow should be planned so that it does not cause errors or confusion on the way to and from the server room. Settling these rules at design stage can prevent layout problems that are expensive to correct during operation.

The article contends that ergonomics deserves weight alongside headline metrics such as PUE. As a limit, being an opinion piece, it offers no new data or calculation to support this argument and contains no numerical criteria. It does, however, give a practical and clear rationale for making maintainability and the human factor an explicit criterion in design review checklists. This view shows that the article is an argument opening design priorities to debate, not a technical guide.

Key points

1. Most outages are attributed to human error, so design should reduce opportunities for operator mistakes.
2. Require front access to equipment such as CRAH units for maintenance.
3. Colour-code and label conduit throughout to speed troubleshooting.
4. Demand detailed operating procedures, sequences of operation and settings at turnover rather than a few pages.
5. Set explicit adjacency rules for loading dock, storage and staging relative to the white space.
6. Ergonomics deserves weight alongside headline metrics such as PUE.
7. A 2014 opinion piece; it contains no numerical criteria.

Using it in design

• Add maintainability checks: service clearances on the access side of each unit.
• Define conduit and cable colour-and-label schemes as an export attribute.
• Set adjacency rules for dock, staging and white space.
• Generate sequence-of-operations and settings schedules as part of handover outputs.

Who should read it

Designers, operations managers and commissioning teams who want to turn maintainability and human error into design criteria.

Publication details

Authors

Chris Crosby

Publisher

Data Center Knowledge

Year

2014

Document language

English

Source type

Expert / community

Access

Free to read

Licence

Copyright retained; citation only — the publisher’s terms apply to the original document

Citation