The document describes an operation center, its personnel, scheduling and operations for a fictional book store in New York City. The components described include the physical properties of the data center, recruiting personnel, scheduling duties and operations. The conclusion is that an effective data center is an important component of business operations.
¶ … Personnel and Operations
Today, data centers are a vital part of business, especially when significant growth is experienced. A data center provides a way for businesses to keep track of both the history of operations and the planning process that occurs as a result. Depending on the size and presence of a particular business, data centers can take either a virtual or physical form. Data centers can occupy a single room in a building belonging to the business or an entire building. For Night Owl Reading, a bookstore in New York City, NY, the data center location requirements will begin as a single adjacent room within the store. Personnel, schedule, and operational procedures will need to be thoroughly planned in order to make the data center a success.
Background
Night Owl Reading is a bookshop that operates locally in the New York City area. Being relatively traditional, it only recently expanded its operations to the online and global markets. Hence, data operations also occurred on a relatively small scale. The expansion of its operations, however, has convinced managers that a separate data center has become necessary. To continue Night Owl's competitiveness in the intellectual market, managers have come to the conclusion that additional components such as e-books and publishing services will have to become part of the company's operations. To manage this new integrated grid of services, a separate data center would be required.
Description
To create a successful data center, sufficient head space needs to be included for future growth. It is expected that Night Owl will continue to grow as new business opportunities present themselves. Hence, space needs to be sufficient to ensure that additional components and size adjustments can be included. The room allocated for the data center, as mentioned, is adjacent to the physical store itself. Space is available on the property to increase the floor size when this becomes necessary in the future. The space will contain four computer terminals to handle four types of data processing components.
Data entry employees will enter data related to general accounting, offline book sales, online and e-book availability and sales, and publishing services. Each terminal will include databases to contain information relating to customers, the amount of each title sold, and the income generated from each type of sale. These databases will be used for analysis and future business decisions, such as which books to stock, which to discontinue, and which to order on a demand basis.
Three cooling systems will manage the heat generated by the computer terminals and central processing units. To save power, cooling air will be supplied only when a certain heat level is reached. This is monitored by an automatic detection device that communicates with the air conditioning system. Since the initial data center is relatively small, a computer room air conditioning system (CRAC) will be used.
Power distribution will initially also occur on a relatively small scale, with patch panels and switches to provide sufficient power to the computer processing units and terminals. Delta transformers will monitor the amount of voltage coming into the data center. The transformer configuration will be Delta to Wye.
Two standby transformers will be included to ensure the data systems do not lose power, especially at critical times of data entry or communications.
Personnel
According to Kabay (2003), personnel selection are one of the key components of data center success. As such, a business manager must ensure that sufficiently experienced personnel are appointed for each component of the data center while also avoiding excessive redundancy within the center. This factor becomes increasingly complicated as the data center grows in size. Again, since Night Owl's data center is only starting its operations on a relatively small scale, a minimal amount of personnel will be required and scheduled for each operational requirement.
According to Kabay (2003), the first step is to determine the company's strategic objective needs. For Night Owl, the strategic objective is expanding to the online and global market in a more competitive way. Hence, the data center needs to be focused in terms of this need. A database manager with experience in the online environment, for example, would be most appropriate to manage the terminal that is focused on e-book and online sales. At a minimum, four personnel members will have to be recruited and trained to manage the four focused computer terminals; each staff member will also need sufficient experience in the particular field required for each database terminal. An integrated skill set and experience will be ideal, however, in case of illness or other human elements that might affect personnel availability.
Personnel members will also have to be recruited to handle the more technical aspects of data center operations, including the maintenance of the online environment, security, air conditioning, and power supply maintenance.
One important component of ensuring the smooth operation of the data center is to minimize human error (Sullivan, 2008) and potential security breaches (Merkow and Breithaupt, 2006, p. 77). A good way to accomplish this is by implementing policies and practices that allow background check for personnel, and especially for those working with sensitive information. To curb human error, floor supervision provides a good detecting and deterring force for this. In addition to the personnel appointed for the operation of databases, maintenance and repair, a floor supervisor would also be advisable for the data center, to ensure the correct entry of data and supervise day-to-day operations. Furthermore, hiring employees to work on both databases and technological applications rather than outsourcing any of these duties further improves the security of IT information in the data center.
Operations and Scheduling
In Night Owl's data center, there will be two main types of operations; computer terminal operations and secondly, technical operations that focus on the repair and maintenance of equipment. Personnel working with computer terminals and data capturing will be required to be available during office hours on a daily basis. Each day will be scheduled according to Night Owl's data capturing needs. The smooth running of operations such as filling orders in a timely manner depends on the effective scheduling of personnel duties.
You’re 87% through this paper. Sign up to read the full paper.
Sign Up Now — Instant Access Already a member? Log inAlways verify citation format against your institution’s current style guide requirements.