There are business owners who don’t agree with storing their business data on third-party servers, the main reasons being the fear of having their most sensitive information stolen and the costs of such services. On the other hand, the simple thought of setting up your own server can scare the hell out of you. Nonetheless, there’s no reason to be scared, as you’re going to see from this article, below. You’ll learn the basic things you have to do for setting up your server room without too much hassle.

Make sure your server room is secure

Safety and security should be your top priorities when setting up a sever room. You could consider installing a combination lock or a card access system, in order to enable only the access of people from your IT team. You also need to reinforce a policy that would require the server room to be always locked, in order to keep intruders away from your servers.

Invest in a proper ventilation and cooling system

You should be aware that high temperature may shorten the lifespan of your equipment and cause damage that may result in data loss. This is why you need to invest in a good air conditioning system to maintain the right temperature in your server room. This is a mandatory expense, if you want to have your own server room.

Make sure there’s enough space for all equipment and accessories

Your server room should be large enough to accommodate all your servers, cables and auxiliary equipment. In addition, it should allow for further expansion, should your business outgrow your servers at some point in time. Moreover, technicians need to have easy access to all cables and connections, as that are going to need to perform regular maintenance routines and various repairs.

Label and document everything

Experienced technicians may think labeling isn’t mandatory when setting up a server room. However, you should ask them to do it, because you need to make sure that any other IT professional would be able to understand all these settings. By labeling and documenting everything in the setup stage, you can avoid further confusion that might cost you a lot to sort out. Diagrams are the best way of documenting all connections and leads. Make sure you store some copies of these diagrams in a safe place, out of the server room.

Mount your equipment on racks

Stacking servers and appliances on a desk is a lousy way of setting up a server room. You can easily end up with a mess of tangled cables that would gather a lot of dust and debris. Rack-mounting a commercial computer is a much better solution, as it would enable the safer storage of all your systems and a better ventilation. Besides, maintaining cleanliness is much easier when all servers, appliances and other pieces of equipment are placed on racks. This is one of the most useful investments you can make when setting up such systems.

Have a data recovery plan for emergencies

Accidents happen, so you need to make sure you have a plan to rescue your data, should a disaster occur. You’ll need to work with a good data recovery service provider.