Keeping your server room secure

Rarely can such a small room have such a significant impact on a business. Server rooms are the lifeblood of today’s increasingly digital economy and not taking care to maintain it or secure it could potentially put your business in jeopardy. 

One of the most important aspects of keeping your server room in good, working order is securing it. Securing it keeps your data safe, protected and minimizes the risk of something going south with your business. Here are some tips you can use to keep your server – and in turn all of your data and built in business intelligence – secure. 

Location

Designing a high-functioning server room isn’t simply just a matter of tossing its components in a closet and forgetting about it. Location, ventilation, accessibility – all these things mean a lot. They’re not multi-use spaces – they’re dedicated for one function only – and that’s to hold your severs. So the first step to a secure server room is taking the time to correctly design and build it out in the first place. Design of a server room isn’t just ‘design.’ It’s security, too.

Environmental controls

Servers are high-energy, power hogging machines that push out an incredible amount of heat, quickly. Year-round, you’ll need some sort of air conditioning to help keep your server room in good, working condition. Even lighting can have an impact on a server if you’re not careful. So the second step you’ll want to take in securing your server room – will certainly be to make sure the temperature is always and consistently regulated and monitored. 

Safety

We’ll be direct, here – there is no part of your business more susceptible to an unexpected emergency than your server room. Any number of disasters – from floods to fires or any other act can demolish both your server room and your precious company data. Server rooms should be outfitted so that alarms, extinguishers and suppression systems can do the job they need to do to not only keep you and your employees safe – but also your company’s server room. 

Future growth

Server rooms have a tendency to grow quickly. While things might be fine now, they don’t always stay that way. Make sure that when you design your server room that it’s bigger and more than what you need so when the time comes to grow, you can do so. Make sure whatever you build – you do so at scale.

Access

Server rooms should not be considered high-traffic spaces. Only certain people should be allowed to access them and you should know precisely who those people are. This will help protect against theft, damage and the like. That way if something does go wrong or if there’s maintenance issues – the people sent to help you know exactly who they’ll need to talk to. 

Owning a server room and keeping it secure isn’t just something that’s nice for a business to have – it’s essential if you want to have success in today’s increasingly competitive market. Until then – we hope these tips help and good luck!