When hiring a third-party data center cleaning company to keep your organization's data center clean, it's important to do your research. Data centers are controlled environments with specialized equipment that must be properly maintained to protect your organization's bottom line, customer information, and more. Failure to employ adequately trained resources to keep your data center maintenance up to par could have severe and far-reaching repercussions.

Many groups have, unfortunately, been underrepresented and underutilized throughout our society’s history. Still, we are making great strides toward equality regarding race, gender, sexual orientation, religion, and more. Among the efforts of this push toward broader acceptance is an increased focus on workplace diversity, which benefits the workplaces themselves and the companies they partner with. Many organizations are taking steps to ensure diversity while incentivizing other organizations to increase and promote diversity as well. Our culture is changing, and we’re seeing these under-supported groups receive the support and recognition they deserve as a result.

Just as vehicles need oil changes and tire rotations to run optimally, data centers also require preventative maintenance to stay in peak performance. Maintenance includes the process of keeping things from breaking prematurely or out of neglect, and this type of preventative maintenance is hugely important when dealing with data center upkeep.

The Historically Underutilized Business Zone (HUBZone) program is a contracting program that aims to increase the access small businesses from economically underprivileged areas in the United States have to government contracts. In other words, the HUBZone program helps communities with business and economic development. This assistance helps reduce issues like unemployment and homelessness and benefits everyone from the government to the citizens.

As you know, correctly maintaining your data center is critical. The importance of data centers to business operations is continually increasing. The better you can maintain your data center, the more efficiently it will run and the lower your overhead for things like electricity. You can then pass those savings on to customers and gain a competitive advantage. Plus, you’ll minimize downtime, and your customers will trust you with their sensitive information because of your impeccable data center maintenance.

The International Organization for Standardization (ISO) is a global network of 163 national standards bodies (one from each country represented by ISO). These 163 members and the experts that comprise them develop international standards and strategies based on consensus and relevance. Among these international standards is ISO 9001:2015, which governs quality management systems.

Data center cleaning is critical to keeping data center equipment running efficiently and cost-effectively. Many data center managers are working with budgets of $100 million or more, and the cost of upkeep has increased by 500 percent since 2000. Electricity alone for a 150,000 square foot data center costs approximately $100,000 per year. Every little thing that can be done to help curb these rising costs is critical, including cleaning. Data centers adhere to specific construction standards, and improper cleaning can jeopardize the effectiveness of those data center-specific features. For example, data center flooring is designed to minimize static electricity, but a layer of dirt accumulating on the floor can reduce its ability to curb static.

When it comes to maintaining a controlled environment, having the proper cleanroom supplies on hand is critical. You need to know what supplies you need, how many of them you need, how often they need to be replaced, etc. While each cleanroom classification is held to different standards, there are a few general guidelines and common supplies that can help you get started.

Not all cleanrooms are created equally. There are several different classifications for cleanrooms, and each comes with its own standards and regulations. The International Standards Organization (ISO) governs these classifications according to particulate cleanliness. In a nutshell, ISO cleanroom classifications let you know how many particles you’re allowed to have in the cleanroom.

Establishing and adhering to cleanroom protocol is important to keep the integrity of your cleanroom intact. Contaminants can be introduced from a variety of sources, but the most detrimental source of contamination comes from the humans that occupy your cleanroom. The greatest and most affordable resource for keeping those contaminants at bay is ensuring proper protocols are in place.