{"id":7694,"date":"2021-09-27T15:41:31","date_gmt":"2021-09-27T13:41:31","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/?p=7694"},"modified":"2021-09-27T15:41:34","modified_gmt":"2021-09-27T13:41:34","slug":"roles-and-responsibilities-of-a-data-center-facility-manager","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/roles-and-responsibilities-of-a-data-center-facility-manager\/","title":{"rendered":"Roles and responsibilities of a data center facility manager."},"content":{"rendered":"<span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time-approximately:<\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 3<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>\n<h2 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Data center facility managers are responsible for the data center at large &#8212; from the outside of the building to the infrastructure it houses.<\/strong><\/h2>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-image\"><img decoding=\"async\" src=\"https:\/\/cdn.ttgtmedia.com\/rms\/onlineImages\/borgini_julia.jpg\" alt=\"Julia Borgini\"\/><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p>By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.techtarget.com\/contributor\/Julia-Borgini\">Julia Borgini<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Facility managers ensure that a data center remains available, secure and running optimally. Because data centers power much of today&#8217;s businesses, organizations rely heavily on facility managers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>A facility manager differs from a data center administrator when it comes to\u00a0maintenance responsibilities\u00a0and troubleshooting involvement. Admins and facility managers often have separate and distinct roles in the data center, but must work closely together and communicate efficiently with one another to ensure the data center runs smoothly.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The role of the facility manager<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Facility managers\u00a0oversee the building that houses the data center, such as HVAC, power, security and other mechanical operations. Management responsibilities also include:<\/p>\n\n\n\n<ul class=\"wp-block-list\"><li>environmental health and safety;<\/li><li>personnel management for facility employees, which includes hiring, onboarding and training;<\/li><li>emergency preparedness\u00a0and response for the facility;<\/li><li>change management processes for the facility itself;<\/li><li>energy management; and<\/li><li>financial management for the facility.<\/li><\/ul>\n\n\n\n<p>Facility managers should be good project managers who can organize resources, prioritize tasks and schedule work efficiently, especially those who\u00a0manage colocated data centers\u00a0with multiple customers using their facilities. These managers should know how to balance competing priorities and demands for resources, and how to adapt based on fast-changing situations.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>Advanced knowledge facility managers require<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>Data center facility managers must\u00a0collaborate and coordinate with IT administrators\u00a0to ensure their complex ecosystems run smoothly. Facility processes must not conflict with admin work, and vice versa. For example, facility security protocols must have enough flexibility that admins can go in as needed to maintain and support their infrastructure, but tight enough to restrict them to only specific areas. HVAC systems should be set at appropriate levels for the infrastructure inside the data center, which requires admins and facility managers to exchange information about their needs.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Facility managers must also have a thorough understanding of data center design principles, industry best practices and up-and-coming technologies. They should know what kind of infrastructure their data center houses &#8212; such as servers, virtual machines, SANs, storage and networking &#8212; and how the physical environment can affect this infrastructure.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>Facilities managers often use\u00a0data center infrastructure management tools\u00a0to help them monitor certain aspects of their facilities, such as power usage or cooling. Such tools can also help data center admins monitor their infrastructure more closely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<h3 class=\"wp-block-heading\"><strong>The difference between data center administrators and facility managers<\/strong><\/h3>\n\n\n\n<p>The facility manager oversees the entire data center building &#8212; from the outside of the building all the way to the rooms housing the infrastructure. They work directly with all these areas to maintain and support the facility. They integrate some monitoring systems that administrators also use and use role-based dashboards to track environmental controls or security access for admins.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>Although facility managers are responsible for maintaining and monitoring the HVAC systems that control the environment in infrastructure rooms, they typically do not handle any upkeep or fixes that happen to the hardware or software there. <\/p>\n\n\n\n<p>This means that if the temperature in the server room goes too high, they can fix the cooling system, but typically do not step in to fix any servers that stop functioning because of the heat. Instead, they work with data center administrators and other specialists to coordinate repairs. Facility managers would also dispatch facility teams to investigate the environmental problem and fix the issue.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<blockquote class=\"wp-block-quote is-layout-flow wp-block-quote-is-layout-flow\"><p>Facility managers do not decide the layout of and connections between infrastructures in the facility. However, they should know how design can affect facility usage to ensure power, environmental and\u00a0electrical factors\u00a0remain adequate.<\/p><\/blockquote>\n\n\n\n<p>IT admins&#8217; responsibility is to maintain infrastructure uptime. They coordinate with facility managers as needed to keep things running smoothly. Whether in a dedicated data center or colocated facility, facility managers watch over the physical location and support IT teams to improve infrastructure uptime.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p><span class=\"span-reading-time rt-reading-time\" style=\"display: block;\"><span class=\"rt-label rt-prefix\">Reading Time-approximately:<\/span> <span class=\"rt-time\"> 3<\/span> <span class=\"rt-label rt-postfix\">minutes<\/span><\/span>Data center facility managers are responsible for the data center at large &#8212; from the outside of the building to the infrastructure it houses. By Julia Borgini Facility managers ensure that a data center remains available, secure and running optimally. Because data centers power much of today&#8217;s businesses, organizations rely heavily on facility managers. A facility manager differs from a<\/p>\n<p><a class=\"more-link\" href=\"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/roles-and-responsibilities-of-a-data-center-facility-manager\/\">Read More<\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":112,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[38,35,8,4,30,3,151,123,11,84,284],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-7694","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-best-practices-for-data-center-operations","category-data-center-facilities","category-data-center-hardware","category-datacenter-news","category-expert-advise-and-opinion","category-industry-news-and-expert-advise","category-information-security-certifications-training-and-jobs","category-it-compliance-and-governance-strategies","category-it-management","category-trends-datacenter-hardware-and-solutions","category-web-application-and-api-security-best-practices"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7694","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/112"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=7694"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7694\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":7695,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/7694\/revisions\/7695"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=7694"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=7694"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/tekmart.co.za\/t-blog\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=7694"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}