The Business Needs
- Appreciate why audits are an essential business requirement
- Understand the importance of defining the current business needs
- Appreciate the need to define what the business actually has
- Understand the business (C Level) against operational perceptions
- Ascertain whether the business understands their tier rating and that it actually meets the business need
Scoping the Audit
- Understand the impact of business Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
- Understand the business direction and the importance of identifying the key stakeholders
- Understand the interaction between the key stakeholders and the operational Data Centre departments
- Appreciate the factors to be considered when formulating the audit scope
- Appreciate applicable supporting standards, regulations and industry best practices
Establishing the Audit Process
- Appreciate the need to understand the present capability against the business perception
- Appreciate the business expectations with the need for a continuous commissioning process
- Be able to define the framework of the audit process
- Understand the need to undertake an audit risk analysis process
- Be able to identify the audit lead and team requirements
Performing the Audit
- Appreciate the need to undertake documentation review
- Appreciate the impact of Regulatory requirements and Service Level Agreements (SLAs)
- Appreciate the operational and environmental structures within the data centre structure
- Understand the key audit areas, the audit expectations and implementation of test sequences
Analysis and Recommendations
- Appreciate the need to evaluate the audit findings against the operational requirements of the business
- Identify the gaps in the operational capability
- Understand the need to evaluate policies, processes and procedures against business expectations
- Appreciate the need for operational documentation accuracy
- Appreciate the assessment of equipment against lifecycle costs, ROI and TCO
- Identification of business risks, operational weaknesses and areas of inefficiency
Action Plan and Reporting
- Understand the need to determine how the site measures up against the recognised industry best practices that are considered to be appropriate by the auditor
- Understand how to assess the recommendations and formulate the supporting action plan
Measuring and Monitoring Progress
- Appreciate the importance of establishing an accurate baseline
- Appreciate the importance of establishing a structured measuring and monitoring strategy
- Appreciate the appropriate use of metrics
- Appreciate the need to re-evaluate the action plan
Follow on Actions
- Appreciate the need for forward planning
- Appreciate the actions to align the Data Centre assets following the audit process
- Appreciate the need to review and align skill-sets
- Appreciate industry guidance and accreditations
Audit Preparation
- Understand the importance of the business and key stakeholder demands
- Understand the need for an effective audit structure
- Understand the need to have an effective communication plan
- Understand the need to identify areas of concern and potential improvements
Mechanical (Power and Cooling) Audit
- Understand the electrical systems audit process
- Understand how to conduct an audit
- Understand the importance of power quality
- Understand the data centre electrical distribution system
- Understand electrical safety requirements in a data centre
- Understand the data centre mechanical systems audit process
- Understand what systems to audit are included in a data centre mechanical systems audit
- Appreciate the value of data centre cooling metrics
- Understand the importance of the chilled water cooling circuit
- Understand the methods to conduct a cooling capacity check
- Understand the importance of air management in a data centre
- Understand the benefits of performing a Computational Fluid Dynamic (CFD)
IT Infrastructure Audit
- Understand how to plan an IT audit
- Understand the different areas of an IT audit
- Understand the audit demands of the computer, storage and network environments
- Understand the supporting infrastructures that require to be audited
Security Audit
- Understand the focus, segments and scope required to spell out security audit requirements
- Understand the training, certifications and experience of potential security auditors or know where to look for guidance
- Scope and types of security audits
- Understand potential audit outcomes
- Evaluate the security auditor’s report
- Understand how to distribute and archive the security audit
Building and Support Services Audit
- Understand the need to review the Building
- Automation Systems (BAS) and site maintenance
- Understand the key areas of measuring and monitoring
- Understand the implementation of the fire containment plan and emergency requirements
- Understand what support services are in place
Asset Management Audit
- Appreciate the importance of asset management
- Understand the need to develop an effective asset management strategy
- Understand the asset management control options
- Understand the impacts of MACs and decommissioning
- Understand the financial implications
Process, Procedures and Working Practices Audit
- Appreciate the structure of data centre policies, processes and procedures
- Appreciate the need to review the policies, processes and procedures
- Evaluate whether they are fit for purpose and actions to escalate non-compliance issues
- Appreciate the industry guidance to improve the effectiveness of the processes and procedures
- Appreciate the implementation of appropriate review cycles
Documentation Audit
- Understand the need to incorporate documentation into the audit process
- Understand the need for structured and accurate documentation
- Understand external and internal compliance documentation
- Understand how key operational structures are documented
- Understand whether the documentation is ultimately ‘fit for purpose’
Audit Closure Process
- Understand the need to effectively collate the audit data
- Understand the need to implement an effective action plan incorporating all interested parties
- Understand the need to have a structured approach to ensure a continual audit capability is implemented
- There are a number of group and individual case studies throughout this program.
