Data Center Maintenance Guide – Best Practices to Prevent Downtime

In an era of cloud computing and “as-a-service” IT products, we tend to forget that somewhere, someplace, a physical computer is handling most of our digital activities in a data center. Largely invisible, today’s data centers are buildings that contain massively complex and interdependent systems for compute, storage, and networking. They require sophisticated cooling and electrical systems, as well as miles of cable.

Even a minor problem can disrupt the data center’s ability to deliver services. For this reason, data center maintenance is a critical set of tasks for organizations that need reliable data center operations.

What is Data Center Maintenance?

Data center maintenance is a set of processes aimed at keeping a data center operating as required. As an example, to achieve a specific uptime objective like 99.9% or service level agreement (SLA).

Tasks include monitoring and inspecting the data center’s equipment and systems, from hardware to electric, cooling, and cabling. After that comes executing maintenance and repair workloads to enable the achievement of operational objectives.

The Importance of Data Center Maintenance

To understand why data center maintenance is important, it’s worth taking a moment to review exactly what a data center is and why it matters for the business that owns it. Without this context, you can look at data center maintenance tasks​ as simply a set of chores. You won’t understand why it’s critical for the data center to be running as expected.

A data center typically represents a major financial investment. The average data center costs between $7 million and $12 per megawatt to construct. A one-gigawatt data center, which is now commonplace, requires a capital outlay in the billion-dollar range. Companies that spend that kind of money on an asset expect it to perform as planned. That takes maintenance.

Data center maintenance is important because it makes possible most, if not all essential IT services in a business. If your business runs its Enterprise Resource Planning (ERP) software in its data center, then maintenance will help ERP work as required, for example, meeting SLAs and uptime rates. The same is true if your data center supports a cloud business. In that case, data center maintenance provides the basis for delivering cloud services to clients in accordance with SLAs and contracts. There might be financial penalties or legal liability if poor maintenance leads to system outages.

Data center maintenance is also crucial because system failures are stressful and costly to handle. You can avoid the hassle by proactively conducting maintenance on equipment and detecting problems that could cause trouble if they are not remediated.

In particular, data center maintenance helps you identify and prevent problems that could lead to system failures and outages. Here are some issues that can occur with insufficient and unplanned data center maintenance activities:

• Equipment failures, such as when a lack of maintenance on the cooling system leads to “hot spots” that cause equipment to overheat and fail.
• Power outages, when poor power system maintenance causes a data center outage. Here power fails, leading to service disruption and even data loss.
• Cabling problems, when improperly set up and managed cables lead to unintended disconnections.
• Water damage, when a lack of attention to water line maintenance and temperature changes lead to flooding, which can cause equipment to fail.
• Cleaning problems, such as excessive accumulation of dust and debris, can interrupt air flow, damage sensitive equipment, and even cause fires to break out.

Some data center managers also include software and security maintenance in data center management. Others divide physical and digital maintenance into separate workstreams. These tasks need to be taken care of, however, no matter whose job it is. Unpatched software is prone to failure. It also exposes the data center and its digital assets to cyber risk exposure.

The high-stakes nature of data center operations makes it less than optimal to rely on quick “break-fix” solutions to a long list of potential problems. Speed is of the essence in responding to a problem, but any issues should not occur if a data center maintenance strategy has been put in place to prevent it.

Data Center Maintenance Checklist – What to Maintain

Your data center maintenance checklist should cover all core systems of the data center, though the scope of maintenance work will ideally align with your highest priorities. For example, if uptime is what’s most important, then maintenance in support of uptime should get the emphasis and most resources. Here’s a breakdown of key data center maintenance workloads:

Data Center Hardware Maintenance

Hardware is the heart of the data center, so hardware maintenance​ stands out as a priority. This workload encompasses regular inspection of hardware, followed by potential servicing, including repairs. For example, a hard drive may have a useful life of three to five years, if it gets older than that, it’s at risk of failure.

Hardware maintenance usually involves storage, server and network hardware, which are all critical components of an IT infrastructure. If a device were to malfunction or break, support must be on-hand to repair the equipment promptly. Original Equipment Manufacturers (OEM) offer this as a service, however third-party maintenance providers are likely cheaper, without a drop in quality.

Data Center Equipment Maintenance

Data center equipment maintenance​ involves regular checks and repairs of servers, storage arrays and disk drives, server racks, and cabinets and cages. Some tasks involved include:

• Monitoring equipment health, e.g., confirming that hardware components are functioning correctly and that in-row cooling systems are doing their jobs.
• Reading temperatures, e.g., regularly inspecting racks and cabinets to make sure they are not at risk of overheating.
• Checking physical security, e.g., periodically making sure that cages are tamper-proof and protected from unauthorized access.
• Repairing hardware that’s broken (“Break-Fix”), including replacing failed components such as hard drives, cooling fans, and power supplies.
• Replacing dual inline memory module (DIMM) chips, which supplement random access memory (RAM) and are prone to failure.

Storage Hardware

Maintaining storage hardware is partly about basic physical maintenance tasks like cleaning and temperature monitoring, however a big component is also repairs. Hard drives fail and need to be replaced and with solid-state drives (SSDs), it may be necessary to replace flash memory chips. (Most flash memory has a maximum lifetime limit of read/write cycles. For heavy read/write workloads, flash memory can wear out and require replacement before the storage device is cycled out of use.)

A lot of storage maintenance occurs at the digital level. This means preventing data corruption and performing tasks like disk defragmentation and data compression while testing data backup and restore functions.

Network Hardware

Data centers run a variety of network hardware types, each of which needs regular maintenance. All components of data center network infrastructure need basic physical maintenance like cleaning and temperature monitoring. In addition to troubleshooting connectivity problems, systemic network hardware maintenance tasks include the following:

• Routers, which have to have firmware updates, configuration backups, and security audits.
• Switches, which need operating system (OS) updates, port status audits, and configuration reviews.
• Firewalls, which should have their configurations and ports checked regularly.
• Load balancers, which need software regularly updated and traffic allocation settings monitored and continually tuned.
• Ports, which may need to have switches repaired or replaced if faulty.
• Firmware, which may need to be updated or replaced.

Software/Virtual Maintenance

Not all data center maintenance tasks apply to physical infrastructure. Much maintenance covers software and virtualized data center elements. For example, it’s wise to perform maintenance on data center virtualization platforms that run virtual machines (VMs) to make sure they have adequate resources allocated to them so they can perform as expected. Going further, checking VM segmentation is a maintenance task that helps with security.

Software updates, including OS and firmware, are crucial for maintaining servers. Intrusion detection system maintenance comprises updating the threat signature database. If your data center runs Virtual Local Area Networks (VLANs), you should regularly review settings and update them for traffic management.

Maintenance of Electrical Components

Data centers consume vast amounts of electrical power, with a varied set of components that require regular inspection, servicing, and cleaning. These include:

• Uninterruptible Power Supply (UPS) Systems—A UPS is a power backup that uses either a battery (static UPS) or a rotating flywheel (dynamic UPS). UPS’s are essential for keeping computer hardware functioning in the event of a power outage. They activate instantly, allowing data center equipment to operate without disruption. UPS maintenance involves battery health monitoring, assessments of load capacities, and capacitor inspections.
• Backup Generators—Some data centers have diesel-powered generators that provide power in the event of an outage that cannot be bridged by UPS’s. They need to be maintained, their fuel levels checked and mechanical parts evaluated for wear and tear. Testing their load capabilities is also a wise move, e.g., making sure the generator can sustain the data center for hours if need be.
• Power Distribution Units (PDUs)—This equipment distributes electricity to IT equipment. Maintaining PDUs means regularly evaluating their electrical connections to spot damage, as well as checking that the power distribution is optimized and balanced across devices.
• Transformers—Another important component of a data center’s network architecture. These should be regularly checked for signs of overheating and breakdowns in insulation, if not, substantial downtime is a real possibility.
• Switchboards and Switchgear—Maintenance personnel should check switchboard electrical connections, test the circuit breakers, relays, and isolators, and visually check for wear and tear.

Cooling Equipment Support

Data centers run hot, what with every microprocessor functioning with a heating coil. Without effective data center cooling solutions, millions of dollars’ worth of equipment can catch on fire or melt.

Maintenance tasks will depend on the type of cooling in use, e.g., air or liquid cooling, and whether the data center uses chillers, cooling towers, Computer Room Air Conditioning (CRAC) units, Computer Room Air Handler (CRAH) units, heat exchangers, pumps, piping, or humidifiers. Each requires its own maintenance regimen.

Cabling Maintenance

Data centers contain fiber optic cables, coaxial cables, and twisted-pair Ethernet cables, along with connectors, cable trays, patch panels, and junction boxes. All of these elements can be easily damaged or broken, which disrupts data center functioning.

Maintenance is mandatory, though to a certain extent, good installation practices will mitigate the need for maintenance to a limited extent.

Building and Data Center Facility Maintenance

A data center is a building, and although smaller modular data centers exist, they are typically large constructions. Therefore data centers need all the usual facilities maintenance that a building requires. This means regular inspection and repair of the structure, roof, floor and walls. Security inspections, for example fences, gates, and cameras, could also be part of this process, as well as checks of fire suppression systems.

Maintaining the IT Systems that Run the Data Center Itself

A set of specialized information systems runs the data center itself. These are known as Data Center Infrastructure Management (DCIM) platforms, which usually work in tandem with cloud management and virtualization management solutions.

These systems take care of tasks such as VM setup and monitoring, monitoring of electrical and cooling systems, server configurations, and network management. They require their own maintenance task flows, covering activities like firmware and patch management, as well as performance optimization.

Different Data Center Maintenance Procedures

Data center maintenance optimization​ relies on robust data center maintenance procedures​. These fall into three main categories: preventive, reliability-centered, and predictive. Each has its pros and cons for achieving data center operational goals. Each also represents a constructive alternative to rushed “break-fix” repairs performed in response to a problem.

Data Center Preventive Maintenance

Data center preventive maintenance​ comprises regular tasks conducted on equipment and software regardless of whether a repair is warranted. Like changing a car’s oil to keep its engine running right, preventive data center maintenance involves testing equipment and replacing parts before they break. For example, checking refrigerant levels in HVAC systems and replacing HVAC filters are part of preventive maintenance for a data center’s cooling systems.

Reliability-Centered Maintenance

Reliability-centered data center maintenance prioritizes the most critical systems for maintenance work. If a data center runs artificial intelligence (AI) workloads, for example, then reliability-centered maintenance might focus on servers running graphical processing units (GPUs) as the highest priority.

Data Center Predictive Maintenance

Another approach that’s graining traction is data center predictive maintenance. This method uses AI to analyze data center equipment to predict problems and flag them for repair before they cause disruptions.

For example, ParkView Hardware Monitoring™ from Park Place is a fully automated maintenance service that predicts when infrastructure hardware is about to fail. The process falls into the general category of predictive AI.

9 Data Center Maintenance Best Practices

If you run a data center, you’re probably already doing some maintenance, but perhaps you could do it better. That’s where data center maintenance best practices​ come into play. Here are nine such practices that can help you achieve your data center operating objectives as economically as possible.

1. Hire and Train the Right Staff

Data center maintenance comes down to people. Sensors and specialized systems can tell you what needs preventive repairs, but a human being has to notice the problem and then do the actual work.

This means hiring and training staff to have the skills to do maintenance tasks. Certifications could be part of the program, with team members getting time and resources to become certified by vendors like Cisco, Palo Alto, and others so they can perform maintenance knowledgably and effectively.

2. Keep Meticulous Records

Maintaining a collection of interdependent systems like a data center will go better if you carefully keep records on the state of data center assets and maintenance tasks that have been performed.

Such records will become the “go-to” if a problem arises with a piece of equipment. They’ll quickly tell you the last time it was maintained, what was done, and so forth. Records can also trigger follow ups, for example, automated calendar reminders to repeat maintenance tasks each year.

3. Plan for Disasters

Despite your best efforts at maintenance, chances are high that you will experience an unplanned outage or comparable disaster at some point, perhaps in the near future. System complexity can synergize negatively with unpredictable factors like weather and human error to throw your data center into a state of chaos.

You should not be trying to figure out what to do when that moment comes. Rather, the best practice is to develop disaster recovery (DR) plans and reference them when you have to respond to a crisis. A DR plan covers actions like turning on backup generators and notifying repair vendors and key contacts in the company. It is a wise idea to rehearse and test the DR plan, updating it regularly as details and contacts change over time.

4. Create Testing Protocols

How do you know when to perform maintenance? How will you know if the maintenance task was successful? The answer to both questions is “testing.” If a machine is running hot, you need to test it for temperature after you think you fixed it.

The best practice is to create testing protocols to support each area of maintenance tasks. They become the benchmarks that prompt when maintenance is necessary and validate that maintenance was performed correctly. It may be smart to be selective at first, only developing protocols for tests related to the highest priority maintenance tasks.

5. Control the Environment

Keeping the data center environment at a consistent temperature and humidity level is a best practice and useful control that helps with maintenance. If heat damages a piece of equipment, avoiding hot interior temperatures will reduce the need for maintenance and the probability of an outage. A possible option here are data center liquid cooling solutions, designed to keep hardware cool, with the use of liquids.

6. Create Redundancies

When maintenance takes equipment offline, it’s essential to have redundant capacity that can handle the load. Similarly, you need data center redundancy to absorb the impact of an outage. This might mean arranging for multiple servers that can assume workloads if one is down for repair.

7. Keep the Environment Clean

It’s a good practice to keep the data center physically clean. Dust and debris can damage equipment and potentially create fire risk. A regular cleaning process that includes dusting and sweeping reduces the likelihood of these outcomes.

8. Outsource Selectively

Even the most diverse and broadly trained team will struggle to perform all data center maintenance tasks quickly and knowledgeably. It’s unlikely that your team will know how to do everything equally well, even if they have the time. Third-party data center maintenance offers a solution.

By outsourcing selective maintenance tasks to experienced, qualified vendors, you can execute your maintenance program without stressing your team. Data center third-party maintenance also helps avoid the need to forego maintenance for lack of resources or time.

9. Select the Most Suitable Approach to Maintenance

You can do maintenance any way you want, but it’s a good idea to select one of the predominant methods and go with it. Choose preventive, predictive, or reliability-centric maintenance as the framework for planning maintenance activities, setting testing protocols, and selecting maintenance tools.

Why Consider Third Party Data Center Maintenance

It may make sense to outsource some hardware maintenance tasks to data center maintenance companies​. Such data center maintenance services offer a number of advantages compared to relying on in-house team members for maintenance.

Highlights include:

• Reducing the need to recruit, train, and retain staff—The third-party provider is responsible for fielding a team of experienced maintenance personnel, so you don’t have to. You won’t have to worry about missing a team member and his skillset if he gets sick, retires, or goes on vacation.
• 24/7 availability—Providers like Park Place offer 24/7 availability. You can pick up the phone at any hour and request maintenance or repairs for hardware and network infrastructure.
• Continuity of maintenance across multiple sites—If you operate more than one data center, a third-party maintenance provider can ensure consistent, continuous maintenance for all locations.
• Service level guarantees—The service agreement you sign with a third-party maintenance provider will (or should) contain SLAs, e.g., response guaranteed within 4 hours of call, and so forth.
• Cost savings—While outsourcing to third parties costs money, a clear analysis usually reveals that the process saves money when compared to the fully allocated cost of hiring data center maintenance personnel, as well as the costs of remediating outages due to poor maintenance.

Choose Park Place Technologies as your Data Center Hardware Maintenance Partner

Effective hardware maintenance, as part of a broader category of data center maintenance, is crucial to ensure uninterrupted operations, maximize efficiency, and protect critical assets.

At Park Place Technologies, we combine industry-leading expertise, L3 engineers with 15+ years of OEM experience, and a proactive approach to deliver unmatched service quality, all with reduced maintenance costs.

Our 24/7 support team understands the unique challenges of managing data center equipment and is committed to providing tailored solutions that meet your specific needs, such as proactive monitoring and a First-Time Fix™ Guarantee. With Park Place, you’re not just choosing a service provider—you’re choosing a global partner trusted by 21,500+ customers. Contact us today to see how we can improve your infrastructure maintenance process.