Data Center Architecture, Installation and Provisioning
Hardware Build and Install
Whether a Data Center, internal Lab or single server, buying racks, power strips and cable channels (also known as Rack, Stack, and Power) is only a small part of activating a center. Even when hosting or housing in a commercial data center, installation, turn-up and provisioning is the client’s responsibility.
Block2AI engineers can help identify support parts and material, optics, cables, routers, firewalls, servers and software loads. Project management of the install including identifying and sourcing physical install teams are part of the service.
Network Connectivity Design and Protocol Definition
Data Centers can be seen as their own world of network connectivity. By nature, they are exposed to the outside world and also hold information that is private. The breach of a data center element can mean significant loss to the company. Securing the data center elements must also allow access and the elements need to stay up 100% of the time. There are very good services that will provide elements, security and reliability but for various reasons they may not be appropriate for many companies.
Block2AI can provide network designs supporting multiple security zones, redundant system design, firewall placement, load balancing provisioning and five 9s reliability requirements for EAST/WEST connectivity from diverse carriers.
Should the company desire to take advantage of one of the existing services like AWS or Azure, Block2AI can provide design and negotiation support when choosing and purchasing these services. cloud engineering
Configuration and Provisioning of Elements
Often engineers will provision a new element or an element in a deployment never used. Try and retry with different parameters and settings, often without understanding the defaults. At a certain point an adjacency forms or the route table populates and the engineer will think it is ok. In high availability deployments or complex schemes this can be disastrous with very unexpected results and failures.
Block2AI employs engineers and programmers with 10+ year experience in large scale carrier deployments and background in central engineering functions of lab testing and documentation. An engineer, with the insight of various deployment schemes, can help reduce the number of failed deployments.
Documentation
Engineers, both software and hardware, abhor writing documentation. It is tedious, requires maximum concentration and, truthfully, we think our time could be used much better letting us solve problems. Documentation is, however, one of the stalwarts of a stable deployment. To more efficiently utilize our resources Block2AI engages a Technical Writer whenever possible to work with the engineer.
Knowing how something is built, why the protocols are provisioned the way they are, firewalls, verifications and yes things to be fixed are all indispensable when trying to maintain a network 12 or 24 months down the road. cloud engineering