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3 Reasons to Implement a Preventive Maintenance Strategy...
And why to insist on authorized service providers
Preventive maintenance plays a significant-though often neglected-role in today's drive to reduce operational costs and run a more energy-efficient data center. An automobile that received regularly scheduled services operated more efficiently, requires fewer repairs, and lasts longer than one that is maintained sporadically or only when something's broken. It's the same with data centers. A preventive maintenance strategy (1) keeps the data center operating efficiently at peak performance, (2) reduces unplanned repair costs, and (3) improves the data center's overall level of availability.
Preventive maintenance keeps problems from becoming disasters
Data center managers who proactively identify potential breakdowns before components actually fail don't get those middle-of-the-night phone calls that there's a problem about to turn into a disaster. They have a preventive maintenance strategy for their data center.
A preventive maintenance strategy ensures systematic, calendar-based inspection of the power and cooling systems, this would include replacing parts, thermal scanning of breaker panels, component/system adjustments, cleaning filters, lubricating equipment, and firmware updates. Prescheduled inspections avoid the common pitfall of postponing maintenance until a problem manifests itself-an emergency. Emergency maintenance is unplanned, expensive, and potentially disruptive.
The traditional approach to preventive maintenance focuses on keeping individual components healthy, but forward-thinking data center managers are moving toward a holistic strategy that views the data center as an integrated whole. A power problem is a power problem, whether it's with the UPS, breaker, switch, or faulty circuit.
Who should perform preventive maintenance?
Authorized factory-trained technicians are experienced and knowledgeable and have immediate access to the engineers who design the systems. They possess a broad understanding of the power and cooling issues affecting the data center.
Manufactures and authorized third-party providers maintain a full stock of genuine replacement parts across the globe and can leverage thousands of field-hours' experience to improve expertise of their field service engineers.
Unauthorized third-party providers may have limited access to spare parts (and may purchase from the 'salvage market'). Because they work on far fewer installations, they often find themselves encountering issues they've never seen before. Their knowledge of data centers may not extend much beyond how to repair individual components.
Downtime is expensive. A key component of avoiding system unavailability is calendar-based preventive maintenance. And the people in the strongest position to provide the highest levels of service are global manufactures and authorized third-party technicians.
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