Netcon Technologies India Pvt Ltd.

No.2 (Old No.133) Kattoor Road, PN Palayam, Coimbatore, INDIA Phone: +91 422 2241012 E-mail: info@netcon.in

DATACENTER SOLUTIONS
The Need for a Datacenter
Today the Information, Communications Infrastructure (ICT) is in the phase of consolidation. Enterprises are centralizing applications, storage and other IT related services for enhanced service availability and security. With the virtualisation and consolidation are being the order of the day, it is critical for any organization to provide a reliable environment for hosting their servers, storage and other infrastructure. A failure of the ERP server/storage system will bring the entire enterprise a standstill leading to huge losses. Since the latest processors use advanced VLSI technologies, the operating conditions such as temperature and humidity has to be maintained precisely for proper functioning. The high density rack mount and blade servers pose great challenges in cooling today where normal server room environment with simple air conditioning is not sufficient. Hence as a part of consolidation strategy, enterprises require to establish a data center for hosting critical IT resources. A data center is a specially prepared space, which provides precise and redundant environment suitable for hosting. Enterprises have two choices for data centers to host their critical infrastructure: 1. Enterprise Datacenters: Datacenter created and owned by the enterprise. 2. Hosted Datacenters: Datacenter created and maintained by a service provider. The service provides offers hosting services to enterprises. An enterprise may choose either of these options depending on their requirements, policies and of course budget.

Netcon Technologies India Private Limited

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Netcon Technologies India Pvt Ltd.

No.2 (Old No.133) Kattoor Road, PN Palayam, Coimbatore, INDIA Phone: +91 422 2241012 E-mail: info@netcon.in

Datacenter Components
Physical Layout
The physical layout should be carefully designed so that the functional components such as air conditioning, UPS and network infrastructure can be maintained and operated without disturbing the server farm. The datacenter area should be properly protected physically using concrete walls or suitable partitions which offer required physical strength and fire resistant properties. The entire space has to be designed in such a way that there is no possibility of rodents entering the centre. All ducts and cable entries have to designed and sealed properly.

Air conditioning
With the rapidly increasing density of the servers and advanced VLSI technologies, cooling requirements for IT infrastructure such as servers have become very complex. Specially designed Precision air-conditioning systems (PAC) with high accuracy temperature and humidity control are employed in a datacenter. The cooling requirements of high end servers have to be considered and the systems should be designed accordingly. The airflow design within the server farm shall ensure that there are no "hot spots" within the server room. The air-conditioning system should incorporate proper dust filters (5 micron and above) as storage devices such as HDDs and tapes are very sensitive to dusts.

Power
Power supply system is the primary and most critical input for a datacenter. Hence special precautions have to be taken to design a good power system. The power supply system for a datacenter consists of the following: Redundant power sources (Mains and DG Set) Redundant power distribution Redundant UPS system

Redundant power supply is required not only for servers but is essential for network infrastructure, access control and precision AC systems. Typical Datacenter power distribution system is given below:

Netcon Technologies India Private Limited

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Netcon Technologies India Pvt Ltd.

No.2 (Old No.133) Kattoor Road, PN Palayam, Coimbatore, INDIA Phone: +91 422 2241012 E-mail: info@netcon.in

Netcon Technologies India Private Limited

Page 3 of 8

Netcon Technologies India Pvt Ltd.

No.2 (Old No.133) Kattoor Road, PN Palayam, Coimbatore, INDIA Phone: +91 422 2241012 E-mail: info@netcon.in

Fire Protection
Suitable fire detection and extinguishing systems have to be put in place. A combination of different types of heat and smoke sensors has to be installed and linked to a fire console. The quantity and placement of these sensors is critical to enable dependable operation. The fire console in turn is interconnected a number of other systems including fire extinguishing and airconditioning. The fire extinguishing system typically consists of a ducted or self contained gas discharge system which is activated by the console. The choice of gas is also based on the actual usage pattern of the space and budgetary constraints. The interlinking of the fire detection system with the air conditioning system ensures that in the event of a fire, the air-conditioning is shut off to avoid further air supply which could aggravate the fire.

Access Control and Surveillance

The security of the center is maintained by using suitable access control systems. The access control systems must have suitable data interfaces for logging and dynamic access rights management. The access control can be by means of RFID tags or biometric means such as thumb print sensors or entry code system or a combination of these. Surveillance of the center can be enabled by using suitable cameras strategically located. These cameras must be capable of logging the captured images. It is also possible to monitor the centre from a remote location over the existing data communication links. In some cases, advanced devices such as motion detectors can be deployed.

Network Infrastructure
The Network Infrastructure incorporates routers, core switches and data communication equipment. The switches and routers must not only be capable of supporting today's applications, but also be capable of being upgraded gracefully and economically to accommodate tomorrow's needs. The network must be capable of growing to meet the requirements of additional data communication speeds, users and multiple services. The equipment must support sufficient redundancy to make reliable data communication possible, while also meeting the need for an economically viable investment pattern.

Netcon Technologies India Private Limited

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Netcon Technologies India Pvt Ltd.

No.2 (Old No.133) Kattoor Road, PN Palayam, Coimbatore, INDIA Phone: +91 422 2241012 E-mail: info@netcon.in

The Network cabling should be designed and installed in such a way that it caters to the future requirement preferable throughout the lifetime of the datacenter. Network cabling can be a combination of Copper (CAT6 or above) and fiber.

Network Security
Network Security is a critical component of any enterprise network and datacenter. Enterprises rely Internet as a communication medium for their various business requirements such as e-mail, partner connectivity (Dealers and Suppliers), Customer Support, EDI and related services. Since Internet is shared network infrastructure, security is a prime concern with any form of Internet connectivity. Hence any datacenter should implement various network components such as firewalls, intrusion protection systems, strong authentication systems and antivirus systems. An Integrated security management is also essential for monitoring and managing the entire security infrastructure. It is also recommended that the datacenter security practices comply with International security standards such as ISO27001.

Storage and Backup

Storage and Backup are vital components of any corporate datacenter. With increasing implementations of ERP, E-Business and Business Intelligence applications, the data is centralised for the entire organisation and the requirements of storage capacities increase consistently. Hence the datacenter needs to have a scalable storage system in order to meet their growing demands. Some of the technologies available for Storage is Storage Area Networks (SANs) and Network Attached Storage (NAS). Each of the technologies can be adopted depending on the storage requirements as well as the applications being deployed. Backup should be an integral part of the design of any storage architecture. The backup solution basically has two components viz. 1) Backup device and Media 2) Backup Application. There are a number of choices available for the enterprises in both the components. The selection of a particular option should be based on scalability, speed, platform support, standards compliance, application support and reliability.

Redundancy and Disaster Recovery

A datacenter requires suitable redundant systems to ensure the required service availability. Redundancy has to be ensured in all the critical systems such as: Power supply sources Power distribution

Netcon Technologies India Private Limited

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Netcon Technologies India Pvt Ltd.

No.2 (Old No.133) Kattoor Road, PN Palayam, Coimbatore, INDIA Phone: +91 422 2241012 E-mail: info@netcon.in

UPS Systems Air conditioning Systems Storage Systems Network Infrastructure

Depending on the redundancy levels, a datacenter may be classified into Level 1, Level 2, Level 3 or Level 4 datacenter. Depending on the uptime requirements of the organisation, guidelines for a particular level may be adopted for designing and implementing the datacenter. In order to protect from disasters such as earth quakes, wars, flooding, riots etc, an enterprise need to implement a Disaster Recovery (DR) center which is physically located in a different location from the main datacenter.

Green Datacenters
Since datacenters are one of the major consumers of power, there is a growing need to design and implement datacenter with greater energy efficiency and minimum environmental impact. Hence due to consideration has to be given during design phase itself to use energy efficient and green technologies and develop management practices for operating the datacenter in the most energy efficient manner.

Benefits of Datacenters
Enables consolidation of critical computing resources in controlled environment under centralized management. Keeping high standards for assuring the integrity and functionality of its hosted application environment Competitive advantage of utilizing the state-of-art-0f technology Reduction of downtime and better management of the operation. Lesser maintenance cost. Adequate and secured access control across the company in to data center

Netcon Technologies India Private Limited

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Netcon Technologies India Pvt Ltd.

No.2 (Old No.133) Kattoor Road, PN Palayam, Coimbatore, INDIA Phone: +91 422 2241012 E-mail: info@netcon.in

Netcon's Service on Establishment of Data Centers

Netcon has extensive experience in designing and implementing datacenters. Netcon offers the following consulting/implementation services in establishing datacenters: Identify the datacenter needs of the customer and recommend suitable model (owned or outsourced) For Customers who want to outsource their datacenter: o o o o o o o o o Study the hosting requirements Onsite study of bandwidth usage and sizing of bandwidth requirement Design of network architecture Design of Security architecture Preparation of Request for Proposal (RFP) Identification of suitable service providers Technical and commercial evaluation of RFP Service Level Agreements and support contracts Post implementation audits and acceptance tests.

Design and develop the technical architecture for establishing New Datacentre o o o Site Selection Datacenter physical layout design Design of the functional components of datacenter: o Air conditioning Power supply system Fire protection Storage and Network Infrastructure Security

Identifying the connectivity requirements

Netcon Technologies India Private Limited

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Netcon Technologies India Pvt Ltd.

No.2 (Old No.133) Kattoor Road, PN Palayam, Coimbatore, INDIA Phone: +91 422 2241012 E-mail: info@netcon.in

Preparing of the Request for Proposal o o o o o Detailed Bill of Materials for the datacenter Drafting of specifications Vendor deliverables and SLA requirements for each functional component. Preparing of Request for Proposal Datacenter management framework

Vendor Evaluation o o o Identification of vendors Technical and commercial evaluation of RFPs Negotiation and finalizing contracts with the vendors

Project Management Post implementation audit and acceptance test Turnkey Implementation of Datacenters

Netcons DC consultants have vast experience in designing and implementing datacenters and hold Industry standard certifications such as Accredited Tier Designer (ATD) from Uptime Institute.

Netcon Technologies India Private Limited

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