Data center commissioning: a key step and a profitable investment

Originating from the construction industry, commissioning (also known as acceptance testing or start-up) involves verifying the conformity of an installation with the specifications outlined in the requirements document, with a dual objective: to ensure that the installation will achieve the required level of performance (service continuity and energy efficiency) and that the conditions are met for this level of performance to endure over time.

At the data center level, this involves checking the conformity of essential equipment to guarantee its service continuity: electrical power supply, cooling systems, supervision tools (BMS, Building Management System or GTC, Centralized Technical Management). It also ensures that the entire system will function in accordance with expected availability levels in the event of an incident or failure, and with energy performance objectives.

Specifically, data center commissioning involves testing the power-up and proper functioning of each piece of equipment, one by one, and then all together. It then verifies that redundancy chains will operate at different load levels, as well as in the event of a failure. This includes implementing various test scenarios to check, for example, site recovery by the generator(s) in case of a power outage, automatic restart of cooling equipment within the required timeframe to ensure IT equipment air conditioning, reliability of the electrical power supply, proper functioning of fire suppression systems, etc.

Beyond load capacity and service continuity, all procedures are also evaluated to verify information feedback in the supervision tool (BMS or GTC), as well as the correct triggering of alerts, in accordance with the scenarios planned by the design team.

The time required to complete this commissioning phase varies depending on the size of the data center and its criticality for the business: while a few tens of hours may suffice for commissioning a room with a few racks, more extensive tests are necessary for a larger data center (colocation data center, e-commerce provider, or vital infrastructure operator).

In all cases, a simple “checklist” is not enough. Beyond the functioning of each element, it is essential to thoroughly understand all the interactions within a data center's infrastructure. It is therefore necessary to develop failure anticipation scenarios capable of accurately and precisely reflecting the complexity of a data center's operation and operational processes.

By nature, commissioning occurs at the end of a project. If the project has fallen behind schedule, it is sometimes tempting to rush this step. However, it proves difficult to perform a posteriori, in case of performance issues or even unavailability. Not to mention that the financial consequences or impact on brand image can quickly become disastrous in the event of an incident or failure.

Commissioning acts as a true safeguard to limit risks. This is why colocation providers, hosting providers, and telecom operators, whose core business involves committing to a service level (SLA, Service Level Agreement), have been investing in this area for many years. Given the digital transformation of businesses, it is increasingly becoming a mandatory step for all data center operators.

Whether performed internally or entrusted to a “neutral” third party, commissioning is a profitable investment: not only does it limit the risk of failures, but it also saves valuable time for future operations teams in discovering the data center's specificities and upcoming procedures. Furthermore, commissioning projects are also an opportunity, more generally, to gather feedback to evolve best practices in data center design.

By Martin Dansette, Project Manager, APL.