Your company’s server room is the proverbial heart of your organization, housing important IT infrastructure that contains data important to your business operations and ongoing continuity. A server room is also a place that can become notoriously dirty and dusty.
And that’s a bad thing.
When a server room contains debris, dirt, dust, and other flotsam, essential systems can become damaged, which can be expensive to fix and impact your bottom line.
Therefore, server room cleaning is an essential business function and a key task when implementing data center preventative maintenance plans.
In this article, the server room cleaning pros at Connectivity will explain why a clean server room is important and steps to take to prepare for cleaning.
Why is a Clean Server Room Important?
As we stated, a messy and dirty server room can be devastating to your company’s systems—and many times the threat isn’t always visible. Ultimately, some basic server room cleaning should happen every day; make a conscious effort to remove trash and mop the floor with a dry microfiber mop if dirt is visible. A microfiber mop will trap dirt but will not stir up dust the way a broom will.
Also, clean the windows and doors on a weekly basis and if your server room has a raised floor, clean this as well.
Of course, if your server room is a high traffic area, we recommend vacuuming it daily, using a vacuum with a HEPA filter.
Here are some additional tips to implement:
Perform a deep clean once every three months to help equipment run properly.
Hire a professional team that specializes in server room cleaning to perform this quarterly task.
Preparing for a Server Room Cleaning: Best Practices
When you make the decision to hire a professional team to clean your server room, here are a few things they should do for you:
Use a vacuum on the raised floor and wipe the floors with a damp mop and chemicals that are approved to be used in a data server room environment.
Remove raised floor tiles to access the subfloor. Then they will use a vacuum to get underneath and suck up debris and remove any extra contaminants with a lightly damp sponge. They will also clean along the cables.
·Vacuum overhead areas and spaces between the ceiling and potentially a second, lower ceiling where cables and ductwork happen to be. They will also wipe a cloth with antistatic cleaning fluids over everything.
Preparing Server Stacks for Data Center Cleaning
Now, not only do surfaces in the data center require cleaning, server stacks and equipment need some TLC, too.
Airborne contaminants can find their way into and around server stacks; therefore, a pro will clean the racks and support equipment, vacuum around the machines and reach hard to access areas. They will also wipe all surfaces with antistatic cleaning cloths or damp wipes.
Mind Your Cabling—Make Sure It’s Organized
Of course, cleaning your server room is only one part of the equation as it is equally as important to ensure your cables are properly bundled and mounted and do not resemble a pile of spaghetti. This is where Connectivity can lend our expertise.
Cable management in a server rack is something that is easy to overlook because it isn’t always part and parcel to ensuring basic functionality. However, messy, disorganized cables can stand in the way of workplace productivity, especially when your company is faced with an outage or having to engage in troubleshooting.
Therefore, it is necessary to get rid of cables that do not work properly or aren’t needed in your server rack to reduce clutter. Additionally, color coding cable ties is a good strategy to differentiate between them as is stacking server equipment from longest to shortest cables so that excess cable isn’t hanging in your rack, amongst other strategies. We encourage you to also hire a professional cabling installer, like Connectivity, to ensure your cable management and organization is done right.
Connectivity Specializes in Server Room Cable Management & Organization
Ensuring your server room is clean and organized can be a bit of a time vampire. Our team recommends you partner with a professional cleaning service to maintain your server room, and when a call for cable organization is in place, reach out to us.
The team at Connectivity specializes in server room cable management and organization. And when you hire us, you will benefit from our years of experience untangling and organizing the most difficult server rooms. Additionally, we can design solutions that allow for server room expansion, so your company is always prepared for your next phase of growth.
Reach out today and schedule a consultation. We would love to speak with you about our server room organization services.