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FMJ - Article DWester 2006

Derek Webster
Derek Webster

The document discusses the relationship between Facilities Management (FM) and IT departments within companies and how they are often seen as "silos" that blame each other for inefficiencies. It states that senior management, FM, and IT need to work more closely together to ensure business continuity and uptime of the IT infrastructure. Breaking down barriers between these groups can increase continuity and reduce risks to the business from IT failures. The key parties that need to come together for the benefit of the business's IT infrastructure are FM, IT, and senior management.

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T here are two business resources that commonly see each other as silos and as a source of blame for inefficiencies within the Data Centre. The delivery and maintenance of a productive, robust and resilient IT infra- structure relies on these resources and they are Facilities Management (FM) and IT Department (IT) teams. Company senior management should deploy integrated support also, who for business sake, need to align themselves more closely. The battle ground is Uptime and the foot soldiers for any corporate IT infrastruc- ture are the FM and IT resource. When the expectations of either function are not fully appreciated or jointly executed an increase risk in down time is unavoidable. With business needs driving new IT Technology into the rack and altering the basic performance design criteria of the data centre a holistic managed approach is vital to identify and correct potential risks. Facilities Management J ournal 59 FMJ SPECIAL REPORT FM AND IT DIVIDE In this age of stringent corporate gover- nance responsibility and litigation savvy clients failure of IT continuity falls right into the heart of the business environment. The impact of IT failure to vital aspects of business, for example, revenue, customer confidence, brand reputation and share price would be inevitable. In many cases legal pressure would follow. The major imperatives of reducing such pressure in todays corporate data centre are security, cooling, power, productivity and managing change. Yet FM and IT see this from differing skill sets. For example, cooling to FM means air-conditioning the room and ejecting heat; for IT its about environmental control, air flow, rack hot spots and server thermal limits for rack based equipment. Within the working environments of FM and IT they are both right yet todays cool- ing needs mean much more. Its about high availability, business continuity, meeting SLAs, brand protection and client confi- dence. Modern servers shut down (depend- ing on the heatload) anywhere between 10 seconds to a few minutes of the loss of cooling within 15 minutes of a loss of cooling. Was cooling lost because the data centre did not have enough in-room cool- ing capacity to service the heat load or was the server not able to receive the appropri- ate air volume to meet its operational needs within the rack? Such an example shows that joined up thinking and respon- sibility of the issue is required across both FM and IT to cater the Uptime imperative. Businesses mange critical IT processes not just for themselves but also for their clients businesses. The complexities and challenges within todays data centers are huge and the momentum for ever faster change to business processes means that IT is no longer a support service, it is at the forefront of any business and in many cases IT functionality is a market place competitive edge. The IT high availability failure stakes have never been more under the microscope and the consequence of failure so high. Who is capable of taking on these challenges? While on a cooling theme; the need of handling the huge thermal load Maximum uptime and high availability is good business, so which internal corporate disjointed parties need bringing together for the good of the businesses IT infrastructure? Derek Webster, business development manager, Wright Line technical environment solutions, explains. Uptime = top ranking Take time to find the right provider who understands FM, IT, your busines and the data centre Except for clients and staff, this is your most valuable asset and likely to be you most expensive facility per sqm 59-60FMJ04-06 - Special Report 23/3/06 1:59 PM Page 55
60 Facilities Management J ournal FMJ SPECIAL REPORT FM AND IT DIVIDE demands of todays equipment which are driving some data centres into deploying such equipment as liquid cooled racks. Who is expert enough to manage, secure and maintain such advances, is it FM, IT or senior management? Who is responsible for significant IT downtime or the breaking of an SLA? Ultimately it is the board, yet at a func- tional level data centre responsibility falls at the feet of both the FM and IT troops? These good people are specialists and do not have the remit to blend the needs of the physical infrastructure of the built data centre with the in-rack IT business processes needs of operational equipment. So what is required? The breaking down of internal barriers and collectively looking beyond the technical environment. Whose barriers need bringing together? It is a vital triad whose collective goals should be to support each other the business and its clients. The disjointed parties are of course facilities management, IT and senior management. Three world views with three skill sets. Managements core focus are clients the business its P&L and share holders. Facilities managers is the provisioning of business with the delivery of multi- disciplinary services to permit the efficient, effective performance of people and process functions within the built workplace environment. For IT management, it is the delivery of digital services that permit the efficient and effective performance of business process and functions within the digital environment. Breaking the barriers that exist between management, FM and IT functions is a route to increased business continuity and lower undesirable business exposures. It can only aid the delivery of value added services within a specific cost envelope to maximise return on investments (ROI). For any organisation that is a complex form of juggling. Is your data centre manager fluent in the language of the three silos? Unlikely! Modern data centres are designed from the rack to room and not as tradition would have it room to rack. Knowledge at this level could well see significant yields in the cost of real estate overhead, energy, data centre size, performance, uptime availability and efficiencies. The need for corporations to understand the data centre environment within the implementation of a company business case, to new infra- structure, site or product selection has never been so complex. Changes of this magnitude require inte- grated expert knowledge and management that can bridge FM and IT people with the need of the business at a strategic level. A need for a bridge that is responsible to the board/business operations, which can see holistically what meaningful change to IT infrastructure and its effect on the business is and which has the capability to deliver; increased accountability, compliance, con- trol, business continuity for the business and its clients, better design now and the future, speed of response, ROI. So what does this mean for those responsible and involved with managing effective crucial IT infrastructure? It means seek a provider who is fluent in data centre speak, who can bridge the three differing worldviews and think beyond the technical environment. FM and IT need to be joint learners for a change and commu- nicate with a holistic voice and finally for senior management to understand the benefits and value of seeking that expert provider for business sake. s Breaking the barriers between management, FM and IT functions is a route to increased business continuity. Should this data centre infrastructure fail, impacts to business process, brand reputation, client confidence will be felt. The Board are ultimately responsible for data and continuity In times of change, learners inherit the world, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. Eric Hoffer (Social writer) The right skill sets should be working on your business critical infrastructure. It is unlikely to be purely FM or IT 59-60FMJ04-06 - Special Report 23/3/06 2:00 PM Page 56

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FMJ - Article DWester 2006

  • 1. T here are two business resources that commonly see each other as silos and as a source of blame for inefficiencies within the Data Centre. The delivery and maintenance of a productive, robust and resilient IT infra- structure relies on these resources and they are Facilities Management (FM) and IT Department (IT) teams. Company senior management should deploy integrated support also, who for business sake, need to align themselves more closely. The battle ground is Uptime and the foot soldiers for any corporate IT infrastruc- ture are the FM and IT resource. When the expectations of either function are not fully appreciated or jointly executed an increase risk in down time is unavoidable. With business needs driving new IT Technology into the rack and altering the basic performance design criteria of the data centre a holistic managed approach is vital to identify and correct potential risks. Facilities Management J ournal 59 FMJ SPECIAL REPORT FM AND IT DIVIDE In this age of stringent corporate gover- nance responsibility and litigation savvy clients failure of IT continuity falls right into the heart of the business environment. The impact of IT failure to vital aspects of business, for example, revenue, customer confidence, brand reputation and share price would be inevitable. In many cases legal pressure would follow. The major imperatives of reducing such pressure in todays corporate data centre are security, cooling, power, productivity and managing change. Yet FM and IT see this from differing skill sets. For example, cooling to FM means air-conditioning the room and ejecting heat; for IT its about environmental control, air flow, rack hot spots and server thermal limits for rack based equipment. Within the working environments of FM and IT they are both right yet todays cool- ing needs mean much more. Its about high availability, business continuity, meeting SLAs, brand protection and client confi- dence. Modern servers shut down (depend- ing on the heatload) anywhere between 10 seconds to a few minutes of the loss of cooling within 15 minutes of a loss of cooling. Was cooling lost because the data centre did not have enough in-room cool- ing capacity to service the heat load or was the server not able to receive the appropri- ate air volume to meet its operational needs within the rack? Such an example shows that joined up thinking and respon- sibility of the issue is required across both FM and IT to cater the Uptime imperative. Businesses mange critical IT processes not just for themselves but also for their clients businesses. The complexities and challenges within todays data centers are huge and the momentum for ever faster change to business processes means that IT is no longer a support service, it is at the forefront of any business and in many cases IT functionality is a market place competitive edge. The IT high availability failure stakes have never been more under the microscope and the consequence of failure so high. Who is capable of taking on these challenges? While on a cooling theme; the need of handling the huge thermal load Maximum uptime and high availability is good business, so which internal corporate disjointed parties need bringing together for the good of the businesses IT infrastructure? Derek Webster, business development manager, Wright Line technical environment solutions, explains. Uptime = top ranking Take time to find the right provider who understands FM, IT, your busines and the data centre Except for clients and staff, this is your most valuable asset and likely to be you most expensive facility per sqm 59-60FMJ04-06 - Special Report 23/3/06 1:59 PM Page 55
  • 2. 60 Facilities Management J ournal FMJ SPECIAL REPORT FM AND IT DIVIDE demands of todays equipment which are driving some data centres into deploying such equipment as liquid cooled racks. Who is expert enough to manage, secure and maintain such advances, is it FM, IT or senior management? Who is responsible for significant IT downtime or the breaking of an SLA? Ultimately it is the board, yet at a func- tional level data centre responsibility falls at the feet of both the FM and IT troops? These good people are specialists and do not have the remit to blend the needs of the physical infrastructure of the built data centre with the in-rack IT business processes needs of operational equipment. So what is required? The breaking down of internal barriers and collectively looking beyond the technical environment. Whose barriers need bringing together? It is a vital triad whose collective goals should be to support each other the business and its clients. The disjointed parties are of course facilities management, IT and senior management. Three world views with three skill sets. Managements core focus are clients the business its P&L and share holders. Facilities managers is the provisioning of business with the delivery of multi- disciplinary services to permit the efficient, effective performance of people and process functions within the built workplace environment. For IT management, it is the delivery of digital services that permit the efficient and effective performance of business process and functions within the digital environment. Breaking the barriers that exist between management, FM and IT functions is a route to increased business continuity and lower undesirable business exposures. It can only aid the delivery of value added services within a specific cost envelope to maximise return on investments (ROI). For any organisation that is a complex form of juggling. Is your data centre manager fluent in the language of the three silos? Unlikely! Modern data centres are designed from the rack to room and not as tradition would have it room to rack. Knowledge at this level could well see significant yields in the cost of real estate overhead, energy, data centre size, performance, uptime availability and efficiencies. The need for corporations to understand the data centre environment within the implementation of a company business case, to new infra- structure, site or product selection has never been so complex. Changes of this magnitude require inte- grated expert knowledge and management that can bridge FM and IT people with the need of the business at a strategic level. A need for a bridge that is responsible to the board/business operations, which can see holistically what meaningful change to IT infrastructure and its effect on the business is and which has the capability to deliver; increased accountability, compliance, con- trol, business continuity for the business and its clients, better design now and the future, speed of response, ROI. So what does this mean for those responsible and involved with managing effective crucial IT infrastructure? It means seek a provider who is fluent in data centre speak, who can bridge the three differing worldviews and think beyond the technical environment. FM and IT need to be joint learners for a change and commu- nicate with a holistic voice and finally for senior management to understand the benefits and value of seeking that expert provider for business sake. s Breaking the barriers between management, FM and IT functions is a route to increased business continuity. Should this data centre infrastructure fail, impacts to business process, brand reputation, client confidence will be felt. The Board are ultimately responsible for data and continuity In times of change, learners inherit the world, while the learned find themselves beautifully equipped to deal with a world that no longer exists. Eric Hoffer (Social writer) The right skill sets should be working on your business critical infrastructure. It is unlikely to be purely FM or IT 59-60FMJ04-06 - Special Report 23/3/06 2:00 PM Page 56