Kens Korner

Beware the Dangers lurking inside your Server Cabinets! You’re responsible for millions of dollars in equipment and infrastructure investments.  Success is measured in uptime and most people outside of the IT inner circle don’t even know you exist.  Failure is downtime measured in lost revenue, which can run into the millions of dollars per occurrence, and the notoriety that follows...

10 Tips for Dealing with Data Center Contamination Click here to view, print and share a pdf of this article. Data Center contamination can lead to overheating, corrosion damage, electrical and mechanical failure of disk and tape drives, power supplies and circuit boards. Data Center Contamination - 10 Steps for Dealing with them As electrical components shrink, they become more...

20 Data Center Cleaning Tips Click here to view, print and share a pdf of this article. Contaminants in a data center can lead to overheating, corrosion damage, electrical and mechanical failure of disk and tape drives, power supplies and circuit boards.  Maintaining a clean data center is critical to its long term success and continued uptime. The sub-floor air...

Cleaning a Data Center Raised Floor Beware Dirty Floors In most cases, a data center’s under floor is also its air plenum.  Not cleaning beneath a raised floor can result in contaminants being drawn into sensitive computer equipment, which can cause overheating and shorten their life. Under floor contaminants will also contribute to dirtier environment throughout the raised floor area...

Cooling Tower Spring Time Start-Up Typically in the northern climates cold winters reduce the need for cooling capacity permitting many data centers to take cooling towers off-line.  If you performed an off season lay-up of a cooling tower to help prevent corrosion and bacterial growth, then you are well on your way to a spring start up. Even though you’ve...

Cooling Tower Off Season Layup “Chlorine is a deadly poison gas employed on European battlefields in World War I. Sodium is a corrosive metal which burns upon contact with water. Together they make a placid and un-poisonous material, table salt. Why each of these substances has the properties it does is a subject called chemistry.” ---Carl Sagan, Broca's Brain: The...

The Dangers of Bacteria in a Data Centers Cooling System – Part 2. Data Center Cooling Systems - Dangers of Bacteria In the first part of our discussion on bacteria in a data centers cooling system, we covered the health risk dangers of Legionella bacteria, the corrosive nature of slime forming microorganisms that contribute to microbiologically influenced corrosion (MIC), and...

The Dangers of Bacteria in a Data Center Cooling System When it comes to water treatment programs, one of the biggest concerns in a data center is dealing with microorganisms and the biological controls within your open cooling tower systems. Why you ask? Because of the dangers of bacteria! Legionella Pathogenic bacteria, like Legionella, thrive in open condenser/tower systems.  Legionella bacteria...

Data Center - Fire Protection - Fire Suppression Systems Data Center Fire Protection - Fire Suppression Systems Fire suppression systems are designed to contain and extinguish fires. Smoke detection system in a Mission Critical facility are designed to alert the operator before water or clean agent chemicals are released for fire suppression and in most cases act as the trigger...

Data Center Fire Prevention Tips As the equipment density in a data center rises, so does the demand for power and power cabling.  More equipment with increased power consumption combined into smaller spaces leads to an expanded opportunity for failure and fire risk. A fire within a data center can have catastrophic impact on a company’s operations and business.  Even...