Many businesses are operate outside of safe capacity thresholds with little or no room to expand. According to the IDC, the average data center is 9 years old. However, Gartner states that any site more than 7 years old is obsolete. Overcrowded or obsolete data centers create a roadblock for growing organizations, and building a new data center(s) is sometimes the only solution. While speed-to-market is critical to success, companies that fail to assess their business needs properly will create dead-end data centers that will not deliver uptime performance goals or meet future business needs.

How can you avoid making major mistakes when entering the build and expansion world? The key lies in the methodology you use to design and build your data center facilities. All too often, companies base their plans on watts per square foot, cost to build per square foot, and tier level—criteria that may be misaligned with their overall business goals and risk profile. Poor planning leads to poor use of valuable capital and can increase operational expense.

This white paper answers the question by revealing the top 9 mistakes organizations make when designing and building new data center space, and examines an effective way to achieve success through the Total Cost of Ownership (TCO) approach.