Understanding and mitigating potential risks is crucial for maintaining uptime during commissioning. The focus should be on identifying systems most likely to encounter post-turnover challenges, to anticipate risks and address potential issues early in the planning phase.

"We focus on the systems most likely to encounter challenges post-turnover, such as UPS systems, backup generators, mechanical and cooling systems, and pumps," Russo states. "Understanding the importance past day one from an operator's perspective gives your team the strength and experience to prioritize vital systems that evolve rapidly year over year."

Key aspects of effective risk assessment include conducting thorough system vulnerability analyses, developing contingency plans for various failure scenarios, and regular review and updating of risk assessments throughout the commissioning process. By adopting a proactive stance towards risk, data center operators can prevent minor issues from escalating into major disruptions.

Redundancy is the backbone of data center reliability. During commissioning, it's essential to develop rigorous testing procedures for critical systems, simulate multiple failure scenarios, and verify redundancies in cooling and equipment.

"We carefully develop our procedures to rigorously test the critical systems and equipment response to multiple failure scenarios, including loss of utility power and loss of any single critical component," Russo explains.

Effective redundancy testing involves conducting specific room validation tests, monitoring temperature trends to plan against single component failures, and testing different failure modes for systems and equipment. This thorough approach ensures that in the event of a failure, the system can smoothly transition to backup components without disrupting operations.