One often overlooked aspect of IT security and service delivery is the importance of facilities management. From an IT security point of view the physical security of facilities is as important as the logical security and administrative measures that are the heart of most security strategies. In the service delivery domain facilities play a large role in reliability, which in turn directly affects availability.

Linda's 19 March 2002 Amazon review of Enterprise Data Center Design and Methodology by Rob Snevely touched upon both aspects. A few years ago she and I wrote facilities management policies and procedures for a CLEC (competitive local exchange carrier) and we both wish this book had been available at the time.

Fortunately we did save our research notes, and equally fortunate is the fact that our next assignment together was developing a recovery management whitepaper, which tied many of the pieces together. Linda was the lead consultant for the whitepaper, but she and I jointly did a storyboard, which led to another idea that took the form of survival level objectives, which led to an unfinished idea called BASIS. Along the way we also became interested in reliability and maintainability and the related failure mode effects analysis techniques.

The Odyssey brought us back to facilities, and we have maintained an acute awareness of its importance. To that end there are two documents that will get you up to speed with the complexities, issues and factors associated with data center facilities management:

1. Building a web site (also available in PDF format). This document covers logical and physical aspects of the data center and associated infrastructure.
2. Data Center Planning Guide from Sun. This document covers the physical aspects and does into detail about site selection, building characteristics, power, environmental controls and other factors that need to be considered.

As you dig deeper into facilities management you'll encounter the acronym, RCDD, which stands for Registered Communications Distribution Designer. The RCDD certification program is sponsored and governed by BICSI, a not-for-profit telecommunications association that is internationally recognized. If you explore BICSI's site you'll find conference proceedings and presentations, a resource library and links to related sites. If you work in IT security, operations, business continuity planning or infrastructure the material on this site is valuable.