Data centers grow, face constant challenges

Data centers are continuously expanding and this growth has brought about many new and unexpected problems. Of course, there are the ongoing issues of energy efficiency and pollution, storage capacity, new technical requirements and disaster recovery and management plans.

Now we have another potential issue to confront: Cyberterrorism. We report this week on an article that talks about how the data centers are ignoring the potential threat of cyberterrorism, and how they are doing so at their own peril.

AFCOM, the leading association of data center management professionals, took a survey of 400 data centers, and found that only one-third have considered cyber terrorism as part of the disaster recovery plans.

Only one-quarter have policy and procedure manuals in place for cyber terrorism, and only one-fifth provide cyber terrorism employee training. Of course, the threat may be rare, or for some not even in the realm of possibility. But data centers hold important information, and their clients demand and expect full service and full protection.

That means that data centers, at some cost to their own bottom line or the price paid by clients, will have to factor terrorism into their contingency planning, and have both the security and the backup procedures to protect the data they store.

Customers expect top performance. They do not want to hear that a system has failed or that their data has been lost or jeopardized. Businesses count on data centers operating all the time, and safely.

That may mean that data centers will have to take the threat of terrorism seriously, and take steps to counteract any attack. Paying the costs up front could mean saving dollars and big headaches down the road. Or perhaps it just will mean that everyone will just sleep better at night. - Judi