A Novel Framework for Data Center Risk Assessment

Abstract

Data center risk assessment must provide an understanding of the risks that the mission critical facility is exposed to. This paper proposes a novel framework for data center site risk assessment, as an important tool for data center due diligence. The proposed methodology is aimed at standardizing a process to help quantify and prioritize external risks to enable comparisons. It consists of three steps: risk identification, risk analysis, and risk evaluation. The risk analysis incorporates the infrastructure resiliency rating and a data center site risk metric to quantify the weighted risk level, as well as criteria based on standards, best practices and expert knowledge. Based on the results from the risk assessment, the risk level may be treated, to adjust it to the desired level. The risk assessment is a way to better communicate and understand risks associated to the data center location, and help evaluate mitigation strategies.