These facilities are crucial because they house critical equipment—computer servers, data storage, networking, and telecommunications equipment—to operate a successful operation.
With such an important role to play, businesses are doing all they can to protect their data centres from poor air quality, gaseous emissions, and vigorous environmental conditions.
Polluted air is one of the most severe threats to the world today. Although we devote considerable time to outdoor air quality, we often overlook the indoor air quality (IAQ) in our offices, where we spend most of our time.
The deteriorating IAQ has a detrimental effect on our vital body organs and the efficiency of our work machines. Airborne molecular pollution is known to be the more dangerous and damaging element.
It is a form of chemical contamination that occurs as a result of gas vaporization. These gases are highly corrosive and constantly emanate from nearby pollutant sources, quickly seeping into your air-conditioned server rooms; data centres/control rooms.
Together with high humidity, these containment gases impair the operating capability, durability, and longevity of process control equipment.
They contribute to the degradation of microelectronic components and device failure, resulting in additional downtime losses.
Electronic devices comprise a variety of metallic and non-metallic materials that are highly corrosive. Without question, molecular gaseous pollutants are harmful to sensitive electronic equipment and information technology.
Copper corrosion is strongly dependent on relative humidity, whereas silver corrosion is less dependent on relative humidity.
When corrosive gases and pollutants are ignored, an unhealthy working atmosphere is created for employees as well.
Data centres are inherently corrosive due to the unhealthy atmosphere generated by outdoor particulates and gaseous pollutants.
Thus, safeguarding the data equipment and servers from possible contamination threats is critical to ensuring their continued health and viability.
Corrosion often results in non-compliance with electronics warranties, circuit board failure, ghost signalling, and even component failure.
Simply put, corrosion in data centres increases the likelihood of downtime and increases repair costs, all of which can have a direct influence on the bottom line.
Although corrosion can result in an almost infinite number of complications, protecting your data centre is a relatively simple two-step process:
Monitoring
At its most fundamental level, a corrosion monitoring system should identify the contaminants found in the environment and the magnitude of the corrosion.
Advanced sensors can detect sulphur dioxide, hydrogen sulphide, nitrogen oxides, and other acidic gases in real-time, allowing for early detection of hazards before they can cause significant harm to electronics.
Monitoring corrosion risks can be accomplished in two ways: actively or passively. As the name implies, active monitoring entails continuous data collection on corrosion, their levels, and the ambient temperature and humidity.
Passive monitoring collects similar data input but does so over a defined period, usually 30 days, using a one-time coupon. Passive monitoring is often the first step taken by data centre service provider due to its lower cost.
It’s simple to detect corrosion problems and develop an attack strategy by using a passive monitoring coupon. After identifying corrosion and thoroughly cleaning the environment, data centres usually upgrade to a more costly, real-time active monitoring system to make your data disaster proof.
Filtration
After identifying contaminants and the extent of corrosion by monitoring, the next step in protecting sensitive electronics is filtering and “scrubbing.”
This is most effectively achieved by filtering the air into a contaminant absorbing/neutralizing media and then supplying pressurized and recirculated air free of corrosive gases.
The absorption media is usually made of carbon, alumina, and other binders and can specifically engineer to neutralize chlorine, hydrogen sulphide, and sulphur dioxide – the elements most likely to cause corrosion.
This method of neutralization and scrubbing is suitable for eliminating air pollutants from monitored environments carrying delicate computer electronics and electrical equipment, such as data centres, telecommunications centres, hospitals, medical research and mill control rooms, treatment environments, and other process industries.
Primary Contamination Prevention Measures for Your Data Center
Contaminants enter a data centre from a variety of sources and come in a variety of sizes. Each poses a unique threat to computer hardware.
A contaminant must possess all the physical properties and agility necessary to cause harm to equipment. Contaminants compromise the functionality of hardware and the capacity of a data centre to sustain uptime.
It is more advantageous to avoid pollutants from entering a data centre to minimize the possibility of contamination-related failure. Three primary safeguards against contamination in data centres are as follows.
Keep the Cooling System Clean
The cooling system of a data centre distributes clean air in the server rooms. Contaminants small enough to become airborne will then flow through the cooling system, potentially damaging hardware and causing outages.
Belt debris is one potential cause of contamination that can go unnoticed for an extended period. Belt debris causes the friction generated by belts running on slightly misaligned pulleys that power the cooling unit itself.
These belts are capable of expelling thousands of particles every day. Belt debris may be mistaken for dirt or dust and is often misidentified as such.
Belt debris can be minimized in a variety of ways. It recommended that the pulleys in the device realigned regularly.
Low-particulate belts may be purchased to replace regular drive belts and produce fewer particles during normal operation.
Another method of minimizing belt debris is to turn off the device and thoroughly clean the belt drive unit and surrounding area with a vacuum cleaner and a microfiber cloth.
At the very least, every three months, air filters in the cooling system should replace.
Control Operator Processes and Installation
In a data centre, physical human presence produces pollutants in various ways, including dander, fur, and clothing fibres.
Some steps can be taken to limit exposure to these pollutants, such as wearing caps and shoe booties.
Additionally, contamination protection step mats may be mounted to collect debris from entering shoes and wheels. The bulk of operations possible to conduct outside of the data centre should conduct outside of the data centre.
Unpacking and assembling hardware can take place outside the data centre in a staging area.
Particle-emitting materials, such as cardboard or paper, should be stored outside the data centre. Before accessing the data centre, all instruments and equipment must wash.
Reduce Exposure Points
The primary exposure point for contaminants in a data centre is the door.
There are many ways to keep contaminants out of the data centre. One precaution is to add a second set of doors to act as a barrier against the changing pressures that can bring contaminants.
Another good practice is avoiding automatic doors that have less power over opening and closing. Instead, add door sensors that workers can activate remotely while wheeling carts into and out of the data centre.
Both doors should fit as snugly inside the door frame as possible, which can be accomplished by using gaskets and sweeps at the door.
The Bottom Line
It is essential to follow an exhaustive cleaning/decontamination routine to protect your data centre. Cleaning the data centre on a scheduled basis should be performed consistently.
Regular cleaning of a data centre’s garbage and debris should perform. The access floor should be damp mopped weekly or vacuumed to prevent contamination build-up. It recommends decontaminating all hardware and room surfaces quarterly to ensure proper operation.
At least twice a year, decontaminate the subfloor plenum and air-conditioning system to avoid debris entering the system and touching the hardware.
Author Bio:
Priyanka Dwivedi is a digital marketing executive associated with Sagenext infotech. Her passion is to establish and maintain the business’ online presence. Apart from work, she is mostly engaged in reading and working on Quickbooks Hosting, Cloud computing and tech trends.
