Data center operational following relocation
The new data center is finished, and almost all of the equipment has been moved to the new location.
The location of the building, which sits between the Engineering and Technology Building and the Combined Services Building, was agreed upon after the center previously existed in the basement of Foust Hall. After a flood that almost wiped out all of the equipment, the server room was moved. Most of the equipment was moved from the old location to the new location in July.
“It basically is a machine room,” Vice President of Information Technology Roger Rehm said. “It is what we call a 'lights-out' facility. It doesn’t have any personnel stationed in it; it just houses equipment.”
As previously reported by Central Michigan Life, the data center holds servers, a backup generator and other equipment used to help campus operate. The building does not require in-house workers, but instead requires a small team to monitor the equipment and make sure everything runs smoothly.
“We have a team of about seven,” Rehm said. “Their responsibility is to the operational hardware side of things. They’re the groups that manage our hardware and our network.”
Construction began in July 2012 after the Board of Trustees approved the plan in December 2011. After final approval, construction began immediately.
“We conducted a risk assessment on the previous facility to figure out whether it was salvageable or whether we needed to do something entirely different,” Rehm said. “The result suggested that we should probably build something that was new, and really built to suit the needs of what the university was looking for.”
One risk they had to consider was flooding. With all the data equipment previously located in a basement, there was a significant risk of damage.
Rehm said construction was quoted under the original budget of $5.4 million, but he did not specify the final costs. As far as upkeep of the facility, Rehm was also unsure of the cost. The 5,000-square-foot building was funded completely with university reserves.
“We don’t know how they will compare to the maintenance costs of the other facility,” Rehm said. “But essentially, it’s a transfer of the funding for maintenance that was spent on the old facility transferred to the new one.”
