Setup Server Room For Your Small Business
Aug 17th 2020
Designating an area to store on-premises servers and IT equipment can seem not needed for a small business. It can take hours to chalk-out a server room setup or server closet, and you might not have that much time. Plus, creating a small server room would need some IT expertise, right?
This process can be made effective with just a bit of basic knowledge.
Below are the steps you can take to ensure you're on the right track.
Understand your small server room design
Taking the time to prepare and understand the technological needs of your small business is an important first step in installing a server room or closet. While planning, consider the important factors to fulfill all the essentials like the spacing, the location, and the types of IT equipment.
Spacing is the most vital factor to consider, and it includes spacing between different equipment and spacing around the work environment. Various equipment that is bulked together can cause overheating, disorganization, and other issues. You may also want to consider where your technology or servers are compared to workers and how accessible this equipment must be.
Location is the second most important component in your server room design. You must consider the type of technology your business uses in finding a solution.
The type of equipment and how much of the equipment your business uses should be considered while designing your small server room setup. Multiple servers and AV equipment can overheat easily and should be kept in a separate room with plenty of space. Smaller network equipment like routers, switches, or even patch panels requires less space.
Ditch the stacking for rack-mount equipment
A big mistake that small business owners make while incorporating technology is stacking machines. Stacking machines makes organizing impossible, and it clutters the work area. This can also harm the technology by trapping heat and dust and increases the weight of the equipment.
By mounting your equipment on racks, you can organize it easily and free up a lot of space in your work environment. Rack-mounting can also allow you to optimize cooling and airflow, so your technology can run more efficiently and effectively. There are rails, shelves, and mounts available of all sizes that can mount any technology you have.
Find the best small business server rack
When you organize your equipment and free up space, a server rack is the easiest way to go. By keeping shelves and rails in your server rack, you can mount and organize anything from servers to network and AV machines. A server rack enables you to expand on the amount of equipment you have depending on your business's needs without sacrificing space. It prevents you from stacking machines.
Server racks come in different convenient forms depending on what your business needs. Some racks are enclosed for added physical security, and others are open-frame for more accessible design. You can find 4-post racks, which can be best for larger equipment or 2-post racks, which can work best with network equipment. If a full-on server rack is a bit too much, there are wall mount racks that can house single servers or a small amount of equipment.
Server racks also come in various sizes. Rack units measure the height of a rack, otherwise denoted by an RU or U-space, where 1 U-space equals 1.75 inches. If you plan on expanding your business in the future, your business would need a taller rack, like 30U or larger. You can consider the depth of the rack. The general server rack depth is around 19 inches but can be more. However, if you require more or less space, several racks can be adjusted as they come with adjustable rear brackets, or you can buy a separate adjustable mounting kit.
How to cool your small server room
By taking cooling precautions, the machine in your server closet will never overheat, and the working environment stays cool. There are plenty of terrible incidents of people working in environments that got up to 90 degrees because of a lack of airflow. Your small business doesn't need to be another one of these incidents.
The first step you can take to make your server room setup cool is getting an AC unit. To keep your server rack machines cool, you will need to benefit from server rack cooling strategies. Adding fans to your rack, or buying a rack with fans is very important. If there are more spaces in your server rack, adding blanking panels can help manage airflow.
Don't neglect cable management
An easily overlooked step while planning for a server room is managing the wires. Messy, tangled wires make it hard to keep track of where certain wires go and damage the wires. To prevent this problem, bundling cables is an excellent idea. You can get zip ties or hook-and-loop straps to get this done. You can make use of a vertical cable manager, or horizontal cable manager enables you to place and secure cables together. Even easier step than these other steps is labeling cables. By marking the cables or color-coding them, you know exactly which wire goes where, and this takes seconds to do.
Label and organize and then label and organize some more
Why stop at cables? Label and organize all of your machines and technology. This is important for small businesses because it further prevents the hiring of an IT expert. You can label equipment, installation and replacement instructions, and cleaning procedures. This enables your business to continue operating efficiently.
Providing power to your server room
Often most overlooked, but one of the most important parts of planning for your server room setup is how you will give strength to your technology. First, you want to make sure that your server room offers enough ability to support your equipment. This is a two-step process of finding out the power capacity of your server room and using a power consumption calculator. When it comes to finding out the power capacity, you especially need to know the voltage and amperage of your circuits.
Planning for and implementing a small server room or closet for your small business can only make your situation better. While it will take some time and requires at least some costs, it is entirely worth it. The amount of time it takes to plan and the amount of money you will spend far outweighs the time it takes to replace, clean, and work on hardware and the cost of maintaining and repairing equipment. Future-proofing your data center by following these steps will help you avoid many problems down the road. Planning for a server room is preparing for the success of your small business.