Data Center Manager Interview Questions And Answers

For years, IT managers have deployed their servers and IT equipment in hot and cold aisles. In such a scenario, the front side of two rows of equipment racks face each other and draw cool air into each rack's equipment intake. As such, the back side of two rows each expel hot air into the hot aisle. While this is an efficient concept, it may not go far enough for higher power loads. A solution to make the data center even more efficient is to deploy either hot or cold aisle containment. In cold aisle containment, the cold aisles are augmented to effectively "trap" cold air into the cold aisle. This allows the data center operator to increase air handling set points and more efficiently cool the intakes of the servers. On the other hand, hot aisle containment is a strategy to isolate the hot air exhaust found in the hot aisle. In both cases, the intent is to restrict mixing of significantly different air temperatures. Both solutions can be effective to lower PUE.

Whatever you say, your response must be measurable targets. Your interviewers are trying to size up what you truly bring to the table and it is better for you to offer quantifiable answers. A good response would be “Management basically has the responsibility to set goals and ensure that these goals are met. Building a strong team capable of withstanding any pressure, working with relevant data and ensuring that all deadlines are met. The company will always continue to grow under my supervision.”

Turn this question into a strength question in disguise. For instance, say something like “I do not like not being challenged at work” or you could mention a weakness that has nothing to do with the job and that you can overcome with training. This way, you end up turning this potentially tricky question into a positive.

Sometimes, you may be asked about certain challenges you faced in your previous position. If you are asked this question, lean towards the problem that happened early in your carrier and that you were able to solve. Do not try to blame others, just identify the problem and the role you played in solving it.

Cages and cabinets delineate the type of space that a colocation provider will convey to a customer in a retail colocation model. Cages are moveable walls on top of raised flooring to separate one customer's space from that of another. Cabinets, on the other hand, are typically lockable individual racks to house server, storage or communications equipment. Cages are typically for larger retail colocation customers, while cabinets can come in 1/3, half or full sizes. Both are used in shared room environments (other customers).

No, DCIM tools consist of a collection of software applications (outlined above), data collection tools, and a dashboard. The data collection is generally done by devices like meters, power protection devices, embedded cards, programmable logic controllers (PLCs), and sensors, which gather data and forward it to management software for processing.

The other component of DCIM is a dashboard. Critical information from the DCIM software and data collection tools needs to be aggregated and presented so IT managers can visualize the data in a way that is meaningful and actionable. Dashboards can be configured for different needs, for instance to focus on the performance of the IT equipment versus the physical infrastructure (cooling, power, security).

With multiple virtual machines and applications running on any single host, the health and availability of each physical machine becomes that much more critical, and that’s where DCIM tools play a vital role in ensuring adequate power and cooling. The other consideration is the intensive and constantly changing power and cooling requirements of a virtual environment — dynamics loads simply can’t be responded to manually.

Data center management refers to a small number of employees who have been designated and hired to manage large data sets and hardware systems that are usually part of a large distributed network. The data center is responsible for the management of significant amounts of data and the hardware required to store it and distribute it to users.

Data center management plays a crucial role in protecting data and keeping it secure so as to avoid data security breaches. The hosted computer environment within a data center must be explicitly managed, but most of the management is conducted in an automated fashion, thus saving hiring and energy costs. Data centers can be managed remotely and may not even house actual employees.

Functions of data center management include upgrading hardware and software/operating systems, managing data distribution and storage, backup regimes, emergency planning and some technical support.

Data centers must remain secure, climate controlled and operational all day, every day. A director’s knowledge of facility planning should include everything from site design to scalability. Site design knowledge should cover building layout, electrical power, generators to keep services running in the event of an electrical outage and fire protection services.

This question is one of the most frequently asked questions. Where do you start? What do they really want to know? Are you to begin from elementary school or college? You have to be very careful on how you answer this question because your answer here sets the tone for the rest of the interview. This question is mostly asked as an icebreaker but if you did not prepare for it, it becomes a real problem.

The right approach to this is to discuss your key strengths and how they relate to the job. Talk about a few of your accomplishments. Talk about your current employer and then tell them how you see yourself fitting into a position at their company.

Discuss your method of assigning responsibility to the best candidates. How you communicate with employees to make them understand what is expected of them and how you make sure that the employees have the resources needed to carry out specific tasks. You should also chip in your follow-up procedures.

Here, they just want to know how motivated you are about the position or if you are just there for the pay. They want to ascertain that you would form an important part of the company. You have to show them that you are willing to be part of the company and would do all you can to ensure you and the company grows together.

You can also try to show them the alignment between their needs and yours.

A data center is said to be carrier-neutral if a customer can order cross connections or communications services from any existing provider and the data center provider actively tries to court additional carriers into the facility.

Monitoring and automation software can do things like:
☛ Provide energy use details that enable the linking of operating costs to each business unit user group, which then ll ws for” charge backs”
☛ Monitor and control facility heat, ventilation, and air conditioning (HVAC) systems, as well as fire, water steam, and gas systems, and facility security
☛ Perform auto discovery of new equipment additions, verifying that everything works out of the box
☛ Report real-time, average and peak power usage by rack, which might help you decide where to add a new server or identity and eliminate recurring and possible dangerous load spikes
☛ Measure power usage effectiveness (PUE) on a daily basis and track historical PUE, helping you analyze whether cost cutting and energy saving strategies are actually working.

Planning and implementation software can do things like:
☛ Generate inventory reports organized by device type, age, manufacturer, and properties of the device (handy to quickly identify underutilized assets, assets out of warranty, and assets that need to be upgraded)
☛ Generate an audit trail for changes to assets and work orders, including a record of alarms raised and alarms removed, providing factual evidence for post-failure analysis Perform auto discovery of new equipment additions, verifying that everything works out of the box
☛ Map out what-il scenanos, such as: ill change the contents of this rack, how will it impact my cooling? Measure power usage effectiveness (PUE) on a daily basis and track historical PUE, helping you analyze whether cost cutting and energy saving strategies are actually working.
☛ Answer questions such as:
☛ What is my data center’s PUE?
☛ What is the optimal place to put my next physical or virtual server?
☛ What will the impact of new equipment be on my redundancy and safety margins?

Newer DCIM tools measure, monitor, automate, and optimize processes for energy efficiency. They can do things like:

☛ Initiate load shifts: for example, when a monitoring system detects a reduced data center load at night, it might consolidate applications onto rack #1 and turn off rack #2, saving energy. In addition, if the reduced IT load can operate at a higher temperature, variable speed fans in CRAGS can be adjusted down, and the reduced cooling load would be reported to the building management system (BMS), which optimizes the chiller by raising the chilled water temperature, saving more energy.
☛ Maximize use of existing capacity: DCIM tools help identify excess capacity and pinpoint devices that can either be decommissioned or used elsewhere, saving on energy, capital, maintenance, and manpower costs. DCIM tools also help identity stranded capacity, or unusable capacity caused by an imbalance in power, cooling, and/or rack space. Map out what-if scenarios, such as: if I change the contents of this rack, how will it impact my cooling? Measure power usage effectiveness (PUE) on a daily basis and track historical PUE. helping you analyze whether cost cutting and energy saving strategies are actually working.
☛ Measure power usage effectiveness (PUE): DCIM tools track daily and historical PUE, helping you analyze whether cost cutting and energy saving strategies are actually working and make adjustments accordingly

The multi-tier data center model is dominated by HTTP-based applications in a multi-tier approach. The multi-tier approach includes web, application, and database tiers of servers. Today, most web-based applications are built as multi-tier applications. The multi-tier model uses software that runs as separate processes on the same machine using interprocess communication (IPC), or on different machines with communications over the network. Typically, the following three tiers are used:

☛ Web-server
☛ Application
☛ Database

Multi-tier server farms built with processes running on separate machines can provide improved resiliency and security. Resiliency is improved because a server can be taken out of service while the same function is still provided by another server belonging to the same application tier. Security is improved because an attacker can compromise a web server without gaining access to the application or database servers. Web and application servers can coexist on a common physical server; the database typically remains separate.

Technology services and facility documentation is used for trouble-shooting, problem solving and future technology or facility planning. Managing this documentation effectively can mean the difference between preventing problems and making things worse, if obsolete specifications are referred to by mistake. Find out what document management tools each candidate has used.

Questions about delegating tasks and motivating staff are quite common in management job interviews. Your emphases should be on team building when answering this question. You can say something like “I always endeavor to show recognition to members of staff that meet goals and in my experience, I have seen that this keeps them motivated to take on more tasks. Where possible, I make the tasks delegation interdependent so that staff members can learn to work with each other and improve one another to get the best out of themselves.”

The reason why you are asked this question is to hear what you consider difficult and how you approached the situation. Select a difficult work situation, which wasn’t caused by you and can be explained in a few sentences. You can then show yourself in a positive light by explaining how you handled the situation.

There are two main categories of data center management software tools: monitoring/automation software and planning/implementation software.

The first deals with monitoring and automation of the IT room and facility power, environmental control, and security. It acts upon user-set thresholds by alarming, logging, or even controlling physical devices, and does things like verifying the data center is functioning as designed, and automating activities that optimize availability and efficiency.

The second category of software focuses on planning and implementation, where IT managers can typically have the greatest impact on total cost of ownership (TCO). It ensures efficient deployment of new equipment, organizes planning in order to facilitate changes in the data center, tracks assets, and simulates the impact of all kinds of what-if” scenarios.

Find out what candidates have done to create and test disaster recovery and business continuity plans. These plans should be designed to keep business running even if problems occur at the facility, such as weather-related disasters.

Leadership comes with responsibility so an effective way to approach this question would be “ everyone that works with me is an extension of my effectiveness as a manager and as such, I will have a heart-to-heart with the employee in question however, if nothing changes and it starts to affect the company bottom line, well, that’s my responsibility as well”

This could be a very simple question if you are prepared for it. You just have to talk about the strengths that you know would be of value to the company.

• Make the most of this question. This question gives you the control to guide the interview to where you want it so take advantage.
• Emphasize the strengths you have that are crucial to the position
• Find out from the job description and from company research, the kind of strengths the company invests in.

Eay physical infrastructure management tools were limited in scope and required considerable human intervention. While they would warn that a particular parameter had been exceeded, the operator would have to determine what equipment was affected by the error. First-gen tools could not make correlations between a physical infrastructure device and a server, nor were they capable of initiating actions to prevent downtime, such as speeding up fans to dissipate a hot spot.

Never management tools are designed to identify and resolve issues with minimum human intervention. By correlating power, cooling and space resources to individual servers (physical and virtual), DCIM tools today can proactively inform IT management systems of potential physical infrastructure problems and how they might impact specific IT loads. Newer planning software tools illustrate, through a graphical user interface, the current physical state of the data center and simulate the effect of future physical equipment adds, moves, and failures.

☛ Are we effectively measuring power utilization in our data center(s) today?
☛ What's our overall efficiency rating (PUE, DCIE, and CADE), and how does that compare to the industry norm?
☛ Are we able to accurately determine which equipment is being utilized the least and/or is the least efficient?
☛ Can we determine energy consumption by application, transaction, or department, and does it make sense to allocate those costs accordingly?
☛ How much is this year's technology refresh cycle expected to improve overall data center efficiency and capacity?
☛ What gains did we realize (or do we expect to realize) from consolidation and virtualization of server and storage resources?
☛ Can we optimize those gains with "what-if" analyses of all available options or through other measures?
☛ Where are we most likely to experience a serious limitation, and are we at risk of having a data center exceed its available capacity?
☛ How can we minimize energy consumption (and costs) in our data center(s)?
☛ What will be the return on investment for improving overall efficiency in our data center(s)?

Your answers should focus on how well you can review relevant facts, consider various options and select the most appropriate option. Discuss how you factor in variables such as constraints and resources.