Extreme rainfall events and rising sea levels are threatening hundreds of data centers around the world. Jason Hood, Global Infrastructure Segment Manager at Roxtec, shares his best tips in a paper on protection of critical communication infrastructure against water ingress and flooding.

In the paper “Water Mitigation in Data Centers. Preparing for Natural Disasters and Climate Change” Jason Hood explains how you can harden your data centers by taking three hardening measures and thereby maintain safe operations and business continuity. Read it today – and learn how to reduce the risk of costly downtime. Did you know that the average data center outage costs 740,357 USD?

• Think strategically. Ensure the right location from the start. Place your data center in a low risk area with minimum risk of high water table or long-term effects of humidity.
• Use efficient seals. Water issues affecting operations may also occur under moderate rainfall events. Use best practice when sealing all openings for cables and pipes.
• Avoid costly outages. Secure your entire facility. It is crucial to protect all your equipment, including generators and switchgear, from the risk of humidity and partial discharge.

“Take hardening measures today”

“With proper site selection and design, you can minimize water related issues in your data center. Building away from coastal areas and outside of flood zones makes sense, but might not always be possible. Take hardening measures to mitigate water ingress and protect power and fiber to ensure operational reliability and uptime. Implementing purpose-designed sealing solutions can offer the best long-term protection against the threat of water.”