Nowadays, the Data Center industry has become so professionalized that everything starts well.
We have top-tier engineering firms that deliver highly optimized designs tailored to the needs of the IT room. We work with well-established technologies in the market that constantly seek energy efficiency and ecosystem resilience. We design with redundancy in mind to ensure the highest number of nines, so we can sleep peacefully thanks to all the "N" we include in our design.

During construction and the commissioning phase, every detail is calculated down to the millimeter: from climate behavior to the energy chain, and the redundancy strategy, all executed by professionals who seem more like surgeons than engineers. In short, a true technological fortress is built, disaster-proof. 

And then Day 1 arrives… operations begin, and suddenly, all that design and construction are left in the hands of people. The variable of time appears, and with it, changes in business direction, product offerings, leadership shifts, and personal ways of working. The ecosystem starts spinning, surrounded by variables impossible to predict during design and construction.

Not long ago, I took a course on Data Center and Reliable Operations, and it opened my mind in many ways. One phrase stuck with me: "A Data Center's design can be defeated by its operation."There’s no better way to sum up what we at Bjumper have been communicating to the market for over 15 years. Good operations can enhance the availability defined in the Data Center's design — just as poor operations can reduce it, even in the most resilient Data Centers. Processes, people, and governance are the key to the proper development of a Data Center..

Here are some examples of how inefficient operations can put availability at risk:

     Managing space like a game of Tetris… without any rules

IT space is not a puzzle you fill with whatever fits. It should be managed logically, based on the four main capacity vectors:

• Power
• Cooling
• Physical space
• Communications

But often, placement criteria follow the rule of “wherever there’s space.” The result: inefficient airflow, hot spots, unbalanced load… increasing the risk of system failure.

    Ignoring IT growth dynamics and thermal load  

The Data Center is not static. Its load grows, changes, evolves. Without a model projecting this evolution, hot spots, overconsumption, and micro-failures will soon appear. Worse yet, the designed capacity will not be fully utilized, forcing early expansions — an unnecessary economic burden.

    Each team naming things their own way.

“Server DB_01,” “SQL-PROD-01,” or “the blue one in the corner” 🥺 (it sounds exaggerated, but reality often surpasses fiction…) Without a unified identification system, finding equipment becomes a headache. How many times have we found departments referring to the same equipment in different ways? It’s like they’re speaking different languages when they need to communicate — even port names differ, leading to doubts during physical connections. All these points directly or indirectly lead to the need for visual inspections inside the Data Center, meaning unnecessary entries — and every Data Center access is a risk. That’s just statistics.

    Fixing the failure… but not the cause

Corrective maintenance is essential and one of the most critical moments in a Data Center’s life. But if the focus is only on reacting and never on analyzing the root cause, the failure will return — probably at the worst possible time. What isn’t fixed will repeat. And what repeats, sadly, becomes part of the routine and ends up being accepted as “normal” within the process.

    Entering more times than necessarys

If there’s no trust in the available information, the team enters the Data Center “just to check.” Each unplanned entry is a risk point. Good operations, including maximum automation, minimize visits.

    Buying equipment without feasibility studies

Si no se aIf the impact of new equipment on the ecosystem is not analyzed, the risks are:

• Increased thermal load beyond design.
• Power requirements outside of range
• Compatibility issues with the redundancy strategy
  It’s like buying clothes without trying them on. It seems to fit… until it doesn’t.

     Not training the team

A brilliant infrastructure in the hands of an untrained team is like a Steinway piano in the hands of someone who has never touched a key. What should sound like a symphony… becomes noise. Expensive noise.

    And how much does all this cost?

• Wasted energy
• Thermal inefficiency
• More failures, more unforeseen issues
• Unnecessarily expensive operations

And the worst part: the design promise is broken.

So, we can safely say: A Data Center doesn’t fail by itself… there’s always someone helping 😅
You can have the best design in the world, but if operations don’t match its quality, what was once a masterpiece becomes expensive white noise.
The real challenge is not building a great Data Center.
It’s keeping it running like the first day — every day.