In a previous article, End-to-End Data Center Construction: From Blueprint to Reality Tina Tsui, Chayora Marketing Director, discussed the challenges and solutions of end-to-end data center construction, from design to operation. EdgeConneX strategic partnership with Chayora offers EdgeConneX data center offerings in Beijing and Shanghai, two of the largest markets in China. For this piece, Tsui will focus on the operational strategies necessary to maintain a high-performing data center. Ms. Tsui 
explains how effective operations are crucial for maintaining efficiency and preventing business disruptions. Through excellence in operations, organizations can minimize human errors, ensuring the stability and reliability of data centers, which serve as the backbone for digital transformation. Read below for her in-depth look:
Who Bears the Cost of Data Center Failures?
In today’s digital era, data centers have become critical infrastructure for businesses and organizations. They store, process, and safeguard vast data, supporting various applications and services. However, operating data centers comes with numerous challenges, such as minimizing downtime.
Downtime disrupts business operations, causes financial losses, and damages a company’s reputation. According to the latest survey by 
Uptime Institute, there are 10 to 20 major data center failure events annually worldwide, resulting in significant economic and reputational damage. Over half of the operators surveyed stated that their most recent severe outage cost exceeded $100,0001.
Avoiding interruptions is a crucial priority for digital infrastructure operators, highlighting the importance of operational excellence. Data centers can achieve efficient, reliable, and secure performance through top-tier operations, providing stable digital infrastructure support for operators, reducing operational costs, and enhancing economic benefits.
To prevent interruptions as much as possible, experts strive to ensure excellence in every aspect of data center operations, enhancing resilience. This includes using Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) systems for power backup, diversified fiber cabling with redundant paths, backup generators, and redundant server designs to ensure continuous service during power, network, or hardware failures.
These measures significantly enhance the availability and resilience of data centers, enabling them to provide uninterrupted, reliable service to users. However, even optimized designs can only partially prevent data center outages. The Uptime Institute’s “Annual Outage Analysis 2023” report reveals that human error remains a significant cause of data center failures2.
Human Errors: The Achilles’ Heel of Data Centers
Data centers house numerous servers, storage devices, and networking equipment that require manual monitoring, configuration, and maintenance to ensure proper operation and efficiency. Given the scale and complexity of these devices, human errors are almost inevitable. These errors could include:
- Incorrect configuration of networks, servers, or storage devices.
- Operational mistakes include accidentally shutting down critical equipment or performing improper maintenance.
- Inappropriate software updates or patch management.
- Security vulnerabilities due to negligence in operations.
As managers and maintainers of data centers, operators are responsible for ensuring the normal operation of equipment and infrastructure while preventing outages caused by maintenance or configuration errors. This requires real-time monitoring of equipment status, regular checks, maintenance of crucial infrastructure like cooling and power systems, and meticulous change management to ensure all maintenance work is well-planned, tested, and verified.
The Uptime Institute’s report also indicates that many human error-related incidents are due to staff not following procedures or procedural errors3. From 2019 to 2022, most managers and operators indicated that better management and processes could have mitigated the impact of outages.
Excellence in Operations: A High-Scoring Answer for Business Continuity
Achieving operational excellence and minimizing human error is paramount for the stability of data centers. This involves proactive monitoring, talent development, and external certification to reduce the likelihood of outages due to human errors. Let’s explore the significance of these three measures:
1. Proactive Monitoring: Data centers need comprehensive, proactive monitoring systems to track critical parameters like network performance, power supply, temperature, humidity, and security in real-time. This helps identify potential issues early and take preventive actions, minimizing the impact of failures. Integrating AI capabilities can further enhance automation and intelligence in monitoring systems in the context of rapid advancements in AI and large language models.
2. Talent Development: Having qualified personnel and providing ongoing training and development opportunities are crucial for efficient data center operations. Data centers require skilled professionals to maintain and manage facilities, making it essential to match team structure scientifically with operational needs, ensuring sufficient expertise to tackle complex technical challenges. According to the Uptime Institute, well-trained staff and thoroughly planned and rehearsed procedures are vital in reducing outages and maximizing cost savings.
3. External Certification: Obtaining relevant industry certifications, such as Uptime Institute’s design, construction, and operational certifications, provides objective and authoritative proof of a data center’s compliance, reliability, and security. External certifications often involve audits of systems, processes, controls, security measures, and disaster recovery capabilities, helping data centers identify and correct existing issues or potential risks, establishing efficient management systems, and improving risk awareness.
Chayora achieves operational excellence through proactive monitoring, talent training, and external certification. Their diverse operations team comprises experts from global tech companies and public cloud giants, offering local and remote service support. Chayora’s 360-degree centralized management system enhances operational efficiency by 15% through intelligent management, earning recognition and accolades from the industry and clients. At the 11th Data Center Standards Conference, this system won the “Data Center Achievement Award” issued by the China Association for Engineering Construction Standardization. Clients at Chayora’s Tianjin campus highlighted in a thank-you letter that Chayora’s exceptional operations services meet high standards for safety and reliability while offering agile and flexible operations, achieving two years of zero faults and proactively anticipating client needs.
Excellence in operations is crucial for improving data center efficiency and service quality, reducing costs, enhancing competitiveness, and achieving sustainable development. It boosts individual capability, team collaboration, and innovation, ensuring data center security and stability, better addressing evolving security threats and operational challenges, and providing robust support for digital and intelligent development.
In this “IDC Observatory” series, we analyzed new trends and optimized solutions for data centers in the context of the digital economy and high computational power.
Facing the developments and challenges of the times, Chayora believes that by continuously enhancing resilience and adaptability, data centers can meet the demands of an increasingly digital, intelligent, and green era. In the future, Chayora will keep pace with the times, bringing more exciting insights about data centers, and will cover more topics related to high-density customized data centers in upcoming series. Stay tuned!
Read the Chayora IDC series here:
- End-to-End Data Center Construction: From Blueprint to Reality
- Agile and Flexible Data Center Deployment: Accelerating Innovation
- The Rise of Computational Power: The Future Path of High-Density Data Centers
- The AIGC Era: How Chayora’s Data Centers are Revolutionizing Computing Power
Footnotes
1. Uptime Institute Annual Outage Analysis 2024
2. Uptime Institute Annual Outage Analysis 2023
3. Uptime Institute Annual Outage Analysis 2023