About the Author - Paul Clarke
I have been working within the IT industry for over 28years and have gained a broad range of experience across a variety of sectors including aviation, automotive, pharmaceutical, financial and technology. I have worked for plenty of blue chip companies including Duracell, British Airways, Toyota and Virgin Atlantic. I am currently working for Surrey County Council, where I lead the team that looks after the council’s data centres.Surrey County Council is a leading south-east local authority providing education, social services, environment, transport, library, community and emergency services. Local partners include 11 district councils, health, police and voluntary services, as well as central government departments and agencies.
The data centres are critical to the day to day business of the council with the technology touching almost every aspect of the organisation. They currently have 2 main data centres with over 170 racks at the primary facility and around 100 at the secondary facility.
What does the job involve?
The job has changed a lot in recent years and it continues to evolve as new technologies come along. The main part of my job is ensuring that the data centres are available and secure. This sounds simple enough but the reality is that the data centre is a very large and complex machine.In addition to the racks of IT equipment, there are air conditioning systems, UPS units, emergency generators and a myriad of other systems which are all required to operate correctly.
The key to availability is maintenance, ensuring that every component is working correctly and operating at peak efficiency. This involves a lot of checks and testing but fortunately, I have some great M&E engineers working for me and some very good suppliers to support us.
Security is also an important part of the job; my team works very hard to ensure the data centres remain secure at all times. There are lots of engineers working in our data centres for one reason or another, so we have to ensure that everyone is supposed to be there and we know exactly what they are doing.
What attracted you to the job?
Before becoming a data centre manager, I spent many years as a technical consultant working on IT projects for a host of big name companies. I had always worked in or around data centres but I was more interested in the technology side.When my previous employer first offered me the job, I didn’t want it as I was happy where I was but once I was in the role, I realised there was a whole world of opportunities. The data centre market is one of the fastest growing areas in IT at the moment and with the increasing demand for services, it doesn’t show any signs of slowing.
What skills do you need?
Planning is key for a good data centre manager, you have to think ahead and always have a plan. But you also need to be able to think on your feet, so when things do go wrong, you can respond quickly and get things working again.You also need to have good people skills too. The data centres are no longer just about IT, they are integral to every aspect of the organisation and it’s not only the IT managers who are concerned with what’s going on. There are managers throughout the organisation now that want to know that their systems are in good hands but there are also plenty of external customers to deal with too. On top of that, there are suppliers and auditors that all need to talk to you.
A good understanding of the M&E elements within the data centre ensures you know what the components of a data centre do and how their performance affects the IT services. Of course, the main purpose of the data centre is the IT services, so you need to have an understanding of the technologies that are being deployed in your data centre as well. Putting all of this together can be quite challenging, so the role can no longer stand alone but requires a multi-disciplinary approach instead.
What does your day look like?
It’s fair to say that managing a data centre will keep you busy.Firstly there is the team that looks after the daily operations. Their workload is fairly diverse and this can create some unique challenges. We have regular catch ups to review what is going on and keep them updated on the projects pipeline.
There are also plenty of meetings to attend, with change control being a big one which gives me the heads up on everything coming our way from new projects to maintenance work to decommissioning. There are also customer meetings and of course no day would be complete without talking to our suppliers.
I also need to produce information for senior management and customers which includes performance reports and progress updates on the various activities in the data centres.
Sadly the days when I could roll up my sleeves and pitch in with the technical stuff are becoming few and far between but I do still occasionally get my hands dirty. Fortunately, I have a great team working for me so I don’t have to sweat the small stuff as much as I used to.
How technical is the role?
The data centre manager is a very technical role and, as I mentioned before, it is a multi-disciplinary role. It has to act as a bridge between the technology and facilities teams. You have to know how each side effects the other and you need to know how to deal with the different problems that may arise.High temperatures in a data centre are a common problem and it is easy to assume it is an issue with the air conditioning. However, sometimes, the IT equipment can be the cause or even bad practices such as missing blanking plates can have unforeseen effects. Having the broader view of all the technologies involved in the data centre is key to ensuring everything runs smoothly.
I came into the role from the IT side which helped a lot but I have seen plenty of data centres which struggle because IT and facilities do not work together.
What are the working conditions like?
For the data centre, failure is not an option. If a technical team gets something wrong you can lose a server or maybe affect a business service. For a data centre manager, if they get something wrong, it can affect the entire organisation. In the commercial sector, this can impact the business by losing revenue or damaging their reputation.For the council, failure in the data centre can literally be a matter of life and death. This creates a lot of pressure but there is a great team around me which helps spread the load. Surrey’s management team is also very supportive and that makes a big difference.
How would someone get into this career?
Almost every organisation has a data centre, whether it is in-house or outsourced and there is usually an IT team that manages it. This is how most data centre managers usually get started, by working their way up from inside the data centre.I came from an IT background but I found the best way to learn the facilities side was to follow engineers around and ask plenty of questions. I was lucky to have some patient suppliers who became my trusted advisors. Pretty soon, I was able to figure out how all the components in the data centre came together.
I also found the data centre community was a great source of information. I went to a lot of conferences and met a lot of really interesting people who inspired me to learn more about the industry.
Having an IT background certainly helps, but having the desire to learn and develop new skills is a big plus for a data centre manager. There are training courses available, but nothing compares to hands-on experience.