Data Center Projects: Forecasting and Accommodating Data Center Growth

Long term data center or network room capacity planning may seem impossible in the face of evolving IT technology and business requirements. Nevertheless, data center facilities have a lifetime that may span many generations of IT equipment, so planning – or lack of planning – can have a large impact on the effectiveness of investments. Many unnecessary costs can be avoided with simple planning strategies, and even uncertainty itself can be incorporated into a plan. This course shows a simple and effective way to develop a capacity plan for a data center or network room.
At the completion of this course, you will be able to: • Describe a simple growth model for capacity planning • Identify growth model parameters • Recognize the value of a stepped phase-in plan • Explain the role of the growth model in the system planning sequence • Determine the system capacity plan • Employ the growth model in Total Cost of Ownership calculations