Let’s outline why having dedicated space for your technology is important.
Enough Space for Hardware and Work
This should go without saying, but your server room needs to comfortably house your server units and any other equipment you need to keep them functional. On a similar note, you should make sure that there is enough room to perform maintenance on them, should the need arise at some point in the future.
A Controlled Environment
Servers are not your typical workstations or computers. While they might appear to just be another box lit up by flashing lights and drives, they are far more powerful and output a significant amount of heat. This is why you often see server rooms that have climate controls that account for temperature and humidity. In fact, server rooms often store the units in specialized cabinets that control these conditions. Too much heat and moisture can cause harm over time, and hurt the overall performance of your network.
The Ability to Scale for Growth
You might be designing your server room for your current infrastructure, but it’s important to keep in mind that your infrastructure is not going to remain the same for the entire time you are in business. It will likely grow and scale with your business’ prosperity, so you should also plan for a certain level of growth. This means making sure that you have room to add new units, additional cabling, and other technological solutions as needed.
Physical and Digital Security Solutions
The more people who have access to your server room, the more that could possibly go wrong with it. All it takes is one person not following the appropriate protocols, changing settings on machines, or improperly handling the hardware to send everything out of whack and create chaos. Your server room should be secured on the physical side as well as the digital side, preferably with biometrics and multi-factor authentication whenever possible.
Now, let’s say that you don’t want to go through all the trouble of customizing a room in your office specifically for your servers. Many organizations tend to store their data and servers in off-site data centers, choosing instead to access it through the cloud rather than hosting it in-house. This is a perfectly viable solution, even for a small business with a more limited budget. That’s where we come in!
At Aspire, we believe that small businesses should have access to the same great solutions and services as enterprises. If you are worried that you cannot afford such solutions and services—including server management—give us a call and find out what your options are! We are sure that we can help you out. To discuss the possibilities with one of our skilled technicians, reach out to us at (469) 7-ASPIRE.
