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December is upon us and in the northern parts of the US it is the annual return to colder temperatures, hats and sweaters, snow tires, and cleaning out the stove pipes. Anyone familiar with burning wood is familiar with cleaning out the stove pipe so that waste can be efficiently carried away and there is much less risk of burning down the house. An Application-centric approach drives an urgency for improvement in coordination and planning between IT and Facilities Organizational stove pipes can be equally prone to causing problems and deserve at least as much attention. Stove pipe organizations largely run up through the organization’s structure with little interaction before they reach the roof, or at least the corner offices of the C-level executives. This phenomenon is particularly challenging in data centers, where the delivery of IT services requires a close integration in design, deployment and the operation of the Facility Infrastructure, IT hardware, and software. These systems need to be planned and operated in concert, but often operate under a wholly separate management chain. A common use buzz phrase today when selecting and deploying IT network and compute hardware is “Application-Centric”. This notion often falls short of its full usefulness as a model when operating a data center. Being Application-centric means looking at every process in the data center in terms of how it impacts the ultimate mission of the data center. The facility staff often evaluates options like shutting down unused capacity or operating with a reduced redundancy An Application-centric approach drives an urgency for improvement in coordination and planning between IT and Facilities to assure the effective use of resources, while simultaneously, maximizing the use of the company’s technology investments. The most dramatic examples resulting from a lack of coordination are in clients where their facilities equipment wastes space and energy because they are only using 10-15% of the capacity that they were designed for, or clients who have spent millions of dollars in new IT equipment that are sitting idle on their loading docks because there is no space, power, or cooling capacity left to support them. The above examples result in undesirable outcomes for both organizations. In the case of the clients who have invested in new hardware that cannot be installed, the outcome will reflect poorly on both the facilities team that its data center does not have the capacity or condition to support this new equipment, and on the IT team that his equipment cannot be put online. On the other hand, in the case of the clients with underutilized space, the struggles are different. The Facilities organization will encounter issues like getting their Data Center to maintain or improve its energy efficiency, and sometimes dealing with equipment that may not function well at very light loads. The facility staff often evaluates options like shutting down unused capacity or operating with a reduced redundancy, but they are often challenged to implement changes without knowing what the real IT requirements are for today, next month, or even for the next year most of the day to day operations decisions take place without any effective coordination. Data centers are much better served by the coordination resulting from having the “day to day” management operations teams responsible for providing the power, cooling, and information technology reporting to a common manager. When the coordination between facilities and IT resides with the CTO or the CFO, major changes are coordinated, but most of the day to day operations decisions take place without any effective coordination. In cases where the management structure is fixed, it is strongly recommended to establish working teams across both organizations to coordinate these “day to day” activities down to the details of selecting where to install a new server, or when to perform maintenance on a cooling unit. This is one of many operational risks that are frequently identified and mitigated when engaged in an operational risk assessment or on evaluating the condition and capacity of their data center facilities. It is highly recommended to look at operational risks posed by the hardware installed and people and processes that operates and maintains them. At the end of the day, the goal will be to support the availability and reliability of the applications with the lowest cost on operations.

We are very pleased to issue our 2H 2018 EYP MCF newsletter! The reaction to our initial communication was extremely positive and we look forward to continuing to reach out to our client and partner community to share news on the firm’s accomplishments, new technical concepts and ideas, as well as important industry information beneficial to our ecosystem. We will continue our strong participatory presence as we move into the new year. The second half of 2018 has been a great one, with both pre-acquisition clients coming back to EYP MCF to deliver their projects and many new organizations selecting us for their requirements. You’ll see a few highlighted wins below in the newsletter. While we are continuing to expand our relationships with some of the most important enterprises in the US, we have also expanded our reach to support them on global needs. This includes setting up strong partnerships in key countries outside the US as well as having EYP MCF employees directly deliver services abroad when needed. We want to thank all of our friends, partners and colleagues in the critical facility/data center industry for supporting us It has also been a pleasure to connect with many of our partners at industry events over the latter half of this year – both as speakers and as attendees. We will continue our strong participatory presence as we move into the new year. And as you may have noticed, EYP MCF, is right back at it again with our focus on industry thought leadership. In fact, in the month of November alone we hosted a series of three webinars on “hot” topics affecting our industry and very relevant to our clients current challenges. They are referenced below in this newsletter and we encourage you to listen to them when you have some time. We want to thank all of our friends, partners and colleagues in the critical facility/data center industry for supporting us throughout this first year as an independent organization once again. We look forward to continuing our expansion in 2019, and becoming an even better consultancy to our clients. Happy Holidays to all! Rick, Brian, and the EYP MCF Partners For newsletter click here

We are happy to announce a series of 3 webinars coming up this November November 9th, 2018 Webinar 1 - Data center sourcing for enterprise organizations and institutions Many factors are changing IT loads that organizations are choosing to run in their data centers. Similarly, many new choices are available to house those IT loads. In this Webinar we will consider both of those variables and explore what elements need to be projected, defined and evaluated to align your Data Center Sourcing strategy with the current and future business and IT requirements. Speakers: Kevin Sanders - Managing Principal Data Center Strategy and Consulting Rob Myers - Senior Associate Data Center Strategy and Consulting To register please click here __________________________________________________________________________________ November 16th, 2018 Webinar 2 - Understanding the economic advantages of a hybrid cloud environment Why is a hybrid cloud necessarily less expensive than on-premise IT? Answer: It may not be but there are fundamental elements that permit more efficient use of hardware both internally and in the cloud that can drive costs lower. In this webinar, we’ll explore those elements and demonstrate how a Hybrid Cloud can improve allocation of IT resources and lead to fewer IT resources processing the same workloads. Speakers: Derek Niece - Senior Associate Data Center Strategy and Consulting To register please click here __________________________________________________________________________________ November 30th, 2018 Webinar 3 - Operate your data center effectively The two primary goals of running a data center are minimizing expense and ensuring availability. These two goals are often perceived to be in constant opposition, however there are many approaches that may be employed to improve both. In this webinar we’ll explore the cost and reliability impacts of improving facility documentation, enhancing airflow management, installing energy and performance monitoring, and using predictive maintenance tools. Speakers: Trish Ray - Partner, EYP Mission Critical Facilities Ian Levine - Principal, EYP Mission Critical Facilities To register please click here

Valhalla, NY— October 29 EYP MCF is pleased to announce the immediate availability of our Cloud Adoption Analysis Service designed to help clients identify which workloads can move to the cloud, understand how it will impact their existing data centers and estimate the true total costs. Total costs include both the expected costs from the cloud provider as well as cost changes in a client’s owned and rented facilities, IT, and operations costs. Many EYP MCF customers are already familiar with our Data Center Strategy Service and we view Cloud Adoption Analysis as an extension of our long-standing objective of assisting clients align their IT and Facilities planning. Our new Cloud Adoption Analysis Service is designed to generate strategy-level decision outputs that will help executives make informed decisions regarding their interdependent data center and cloud strategy options. As part of the Cloud Adoption Analysis Service, EYP MCF consultants will help categorize workload groups that are likely candidates for cloud migration. Correspondingly, we will identify the underlying IT and facility infrastructure and assets that will be affected by such a move. The list of client-side infrastructure and assets includes but is not limited to IT equipment, licensing, rent, power, and staffing. This service seeks to answer the following questions: 1. The projected costs of public cloud infrastructure to support identified workloads and 2. The cost deltas based on savings or cost increases related to customer side costs that will change due to movement of identified workloads to the cloud. 3. How cloud adoption will impact data center planning in the future, particularly when combined with our Data Center Strategy Service. Before spending months or years on an application dependency mapping program, this service as a first step will help our client executives assess and incorporate the impact of the cloud on long-term strategic-level decisions. For more information click here or contact us at: info@eypmcfinc.com

We all know commissioning is the process of confirming that the completed building and systems meet the design criteria for function and capacity after construction, but what is retro-commissioning? The retro-commissioning process can uncover inherent flaws in building operation or design that become evident over time due to load growth or new operating procedures. Retro-commissioning is the commissioning of an existing active facility. This can take the form of the full commissioning of a facility that has never been commissioned or the commissioning of the existing system to ensure that the system still functions with the same efficiency and expected operation as it did when first commissioned and occupied. Retro-commissioning is not a new process. EYP MCF Inc. has been doing it for decades. Sometimes it is the confirmation of a UPS system operation after the annual maintenance, and sometimes it is the verification of the BMS system operation after a software upgrade. The basis for the process is vested in the overall ASHRAE Commissioning process of Level 4 and Level 5 testing. Many times energy savings can be found though proper adjustment and verification of proper system operation. Retro-commissioning can also take the form of energy audits, energy monitoring and the rebalancing of the air and water in the facility following installation of a new piece of equipment. Testing and Balancing of an existing facility is always important to verify that water and air flows have not been modified in ways that can damage equipment or cause hot spots. The retro-commissioning process can uncover inherent flaws in building operation or design that become evident over time due to load growth or new operating procedures. Many times energy savings can be found though proper adjustment and verification of proper system operation. The culmination of commissioning and retro-commissioning is the confirmation of the development of proper operational, emergency and maintenance procedures, verification of operations and maintenance manuals, as well as the optimization of facility operation while allowing and ensuring for the training and evaluation of facility personnel.

We are very excited to be able to introduce this communication that allows us to share news, industry events, thought leadership and other ideas with our client and partner ecosystem. We hope you will find it useful in gaining some further insight into our organization and the critical facilities and data center industry as a whole. Our first half year as an independent company has been an exciting one! The industry has been extremely welcoming to our return as an independent organization We have had a smooth transition carrying many clients forward after our departure from HPE, of course reestablished many former relationships with folks we had not worked with for a while, and built new ones with customers who are newer entrants to the market. It has been terrific seeing many of you at the DCD in NYC and SF, the 7x24 event in Orlando, and many other networking and conference events since February. The industry has been extremely welcoming to our return as an independent organization, and is excited about the additional services we now have around data center strategy and consulting (future planning, TCO, sourcing for Hybrid IT and Cloud), in addition to our core services around MEP design, integration and commissioning and testing. It feels great to “put the band back together” We are also excited about a number of former EYP MCF’ers rejoining our practice over the past few months – no doubt it feels great to “put the band back together” (as many of you have stated)! Again, thanks for all the support from all of you over the past six months. We are incredibly lucky to have such a great group of loyal friends and colleagues in this “small” industry who have been there all along with us throughout EYP MCF’s 20+ year journey, and we look forward to continuing to grow with you and your organizations in this next chapter. - Rick, Brian, and the EYP MCF Partners

Determining the true cloud impact and the preparation for cloud implementation must address the application level. Corporate Facilities and IT departments collectively struggle with the development of Data Center Strategy as it must straddle the competing requirements and perspectives of these two worlds. Facilities is measured on the stability and costs of the data centers. IT conversely, wants no downtime and wants the data centers to always have capacity for their changing, and often unplanned, IT requirements. The overall Corporate strategy objective must be to identify and size the data center mix such that all requirements can be met over time at the lowest cost while also supporting the changing needs of the mission and application portfolio The cloud’s significance within overall data center strategy and impact on total costs has grown such that any conclusions without considering both the internal savings vs net additional costs from cloud adoption would be missing a big part of the picture. The impact of cloud adoption is the newest variable in the equation and has become the elephant in the data center strategy room. Indeed, the migration of applications to the cloud has become the biggest driver for change in the enterprise data center environment. One hears occasional declarations that “everything” is moving to the cloud. Such bold statements quickly fade upon deeper analysis but the impact of application migration to the cloud should not be lost. The cloud’s significance within overall data center strategy and impact on total costs has grown such that any conclusions without considering both the internal savings vs net additional costs from cloud adoption would be missing a big part of the picture. Further, understanding how the cloud economics differ for each application/category should not be sacrificed under the weight of the cloud’s surrounding hype. Most on-line TCO cost comparison tools fail to make this distinction between fixed and variable costs when they calculate “savings” from the cloud. Some companies may initially opt for high level estimations regarding cost savings from moving candidate environments (e.g. dev/test) or candidate applications (e.g. web apps) to the cloud rather than a detailed analysis. This form of high-level review may provide directional information regarding whether to include the cloud in the overall strategy and an idea regarding potential costs or savings, but it will not indicate how to proceed or provide the precise information needed to begin migration planning of applications to the cloud. This high-level approach makes sense when generally assessing cloud among multiple data center sourcing options. Eventually, however, determining the true cloud impact and the preparation for cloud implementation must address the application level and include the following steps: • Evaluate and categorize candidate applications for cloud readiness based on multiple elements including OS/version, application dependencies, bulkiness/chattiness, latency issues, security factors, licensing etc. Applications can be categorized into “buckets” representing their readiness based on suitability and transformation costs. Based on this categorization, application can be identified as candidates for migration to the cloud over a forecast period. • Identify the cost savings associated with those applications moving to the cloud. It is important understand the marginal cost savings for each element. That is, the costs that really go away when an application moves to the cloud. Each underlying application element must be identified, costed, and analyzed to understand what and when costs are saved. These include IT and Facilities cost elements such as virtual machine licenses, server costs, storage (all required types), network, power, and data center costs. The latter represent costs that do not go away linearly as apps and servers move to the cloud. If you move 50 VMs to the cloud, you may save license costs and perhaps some power, but data center rent, depreciation, and maintenance will likely remain unaffected. Most on-line TCO cost comparison tools fail to make this distinction between fixed and variable costs when they calculate “savings” from the cloud. • Identify the corresponding cost increase to house and run the applications in the cloud. Most cloud providers have intuitive and detailed cost modeling tools necessary to estimate this side of the equation. What they lack, however, is the ability to project multiple applications moving to the cloud over time and how they are growing or changing over time. The cloud provider costing tools need to be augmented with analysis that reflects how your applications are expected to grow over time. It is important to also add three cost elements that may be beyond the scope of many cloud cost calculators. Application transformation costs: These include the development costs to adjust, upgrade, or replatform the application to enable it to function in the cloud. Migration costs: Moving applications to the cloud entails a full migration effort little different from a migration between enterprise data centers. The costs of planning and execution need to be included in the cloud side of the cost equation. Governance and Management: Depending on the scope of the cloud initiative, it may be necessary to construct a management and governance organization that enables the users to access cloud resources and enforce limits, rules, and standards. • Complete the longer-term Total Cost Analysis. Complete a year by year cost analysis that compares year by year savings from fewer VMs, lower power, reduced headcount, etc. against the cloud server, IO, storage, transformation, and migration costs. Additionally, after this analysis, the lower data center footprints required can be built into the data center strategy and likely yield lower overall data center outlays. These steps, while requiring substantial effort, will enable you to quantify the effect of each application’s move to the cloud while also providing much of the early groundwork needed for the actual migration.

Data center grounding is designed to not meet code but exceed it. Code minimum design is for life safety and not necessarily for critical equipment installations. There are various codes and standards relative to grounding, lightning protection and sensitive equipment grounding. Code is a requirement whereas standards are recommendations. They are listed below. Many equipment vendors will not warranty equipment unless the installation meets code as well as many of the equipment standards. 1. FIPS PUBS 94, 1983, Guideline on Electrical Power for ADP Installations, 1983 (USA Federal Information Processing Standards Publications) (Standard) 2. ANSI/IEEE 1100, Recommended Practice for Powering and Grounding Electronic Equipment (Standard) 3. National Fire Protection Assoc. (NFPA) 70 – National Electrical Code (NEC) (Code) 4. National Fire Protection Assoc. (NFPA) 780 - Standard for the Installation of Lightning Protection Systems (Standard) 5. EIA / TIA 607 - Commercial Building Grounding and Bonding Requirements for Telecommunications (Standard) 6. ATIS 0600318, Electrical Protection Applied to Telecommunications Network Plant at Entrances to Customer Structures or Buildings (Standard) 7. ATIS-0600313, Electrical Protection for Telecommunications Central Offices and Similar Type Facilities (Standard) 8. EN 50310, Application of Equipotential Bonding and Earthing in Buildings with Information Technology Equipment (Standard) 9. MIL-HDBK-419A, Grounding, Bonding, and Shielding for Electronic Equipments and Facilities Basic Theory (Standard) 10. ANSI/IEEE C2, National Electrical Safety Code (NESC) (Code) 11. ANSI/ATIS 0600333, Grounding and Bonding of Telecommunications Equipment (Standard) Many equipment vendors will not warranty equipment unless the installation meets code as well as many of the equipment standards. Data center equipment can be subject to power quality issues that include over and under voltages as well as spikes due to utility system issues or internal building operations; lightning activity; electrical noise (typically Common Mode); electromagnetic interference (EMI) and radio frequency interference (RFI). Adequate grounding systems minimize or eliminate most of these issues. We do not recommend that the lightning protection system utilize the building steel columns as down conductors for the protection system. Data center grounding requires the bonding of all ground references to a common equipotential plane. This starts with the Signal Reference Grid (SRG) inside the data center. In accordance with FIPS 94, “A signal reference structure (SRS) should be employed as the basic means of achieving a high-frequency common ground reference for all equipment within a contiguous area. A properly designed and installed SRS effectively equalizes ground potential over a broad range of frequencies from dc through the megahertz range.” SRG is also credited with the following benefits: 1. Equipment communication interference reduction 2. Equipment damage prevention 3. Noise discharge path 4. Electrostatic discharge (ESD) protection The below is from the IEEE Emerald Book, Powering and Grounding Sensitive Electronic Equipment, IEEE Std 1100-1992, IEEE, NY, 1995, p. 216 and it confirms the need of equipotential grounding across the facility: "It is important to ensure that low-impedance grounding and bonding connections exist among the telephone and data equipment, the ac power system's electrical safety-grounding system, and the building grounding electrode system. This recommendation is in addition to any made grounding electrodes, such as the lightning ground ring. Failure to observe any part of this grounding requirement may result in hazardous potential being developed between the telephone (data) equipment and other grounded items that personnel may be near or might simultaneously contact." This requirement applies to the building, the utility service and all emergency /standby power sources for the site. Dedicated down conductors are best practice for data center lightning protection. Lightning protection, as indicated in NFPA 780, should be provided. NFPA 780 is a standard and not a code. The standard allows for protection of various types of facilities. Good data center engineering practice is to provide an equipotential grounding ring around the facility, while connecting all external equipment serving the facility to that equipotential ring. This would include the utility transformers, generators, service equipment, metallic water piping etc. We do not recommend that the lightning protection system utilize the building steel columns as down conductors for the protection system. Potential for elevated voltages due to lightning strikes would be expected and these will be detrimental to data center equipment operation. Dedicated down conductors are best practice for data center lightning protection. Many lightning protection design guides as well as the Lightning Protection Institute recommend a grounding electrode ring for the lightning protection system as indicated below from Golde, Lightning, Academic Press, NY, 1977, vol. 2, chapter 19 by H. Baatz, Stuttgart, Germany, p. 611: "Equalization of potentials should be effected for all metallic installations. For lightning protection of a structure it is of greater importance than the earthing resistance...The best way for equalization of potentials utilizes a suitable earthing system in the form of a ring or foundation earth. The down conductors are bonded to such a ring earth; additional earth electrodes may be unnecessary…" The lightning protection system requires annual maintenance/testing/verification to maintain the UL Master Label. Conductors and connections to the system need to be accessible to permit this verification.