Wipe your finger on a distribution cabinet or a patch panel in a data center. Then watch your finger, can you see the scene shown in the picture on the right side? Your finger is attached with dust or dirt. This situation is so familiar to most telecom engineers working in data centers. However, how many people really care about it?

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Wipe your finger on a distribution cabinet or a patch panel in a data center. Then watch your finger,
can you see the scene shown in the picture on the right side? Your finger is attached with dust or
dirt. This situation is so familiar to most telecom engineers working in data centers. However, how
many people really care about it? You might recognize that the data center needs cleaning, but you
might just think about it. This is the contaminant that can be seen and checked directly by eyes or
touching. How about those dust or dirt inside the equipment? Over time, without timely cleaning,
the accumulation of dirt and dust will lead to problems like overheating and various network
failures. This is just the start of troubles, more are there to be deal with, if no proper action was
taken.
Why Clean the Data Center?
What would happen, if there is no regular cleaning in data center? As mentioned, the most direct
result of contaminant is overheating. Why? Dust and pollutants in the data center are usually
light-weight. If there is air flow, dust or dirt will move with it. The cooling system of the data center
is largely depending on server fan which can bring the dust and dirt into the cooling system. The
accumulation of these contaminant can cause fan failure or static discharge inside equipment. The
heat dissipation will need more time and heat emission efficiency is limited. The following picture
which shows the contaminant at a server fan air intake, answers this question intuitively.
Clean the Dirt and Dust
In Data Center

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With the cooling system being affected by the dust and dirt, the risk of the data center will be
increased largely. Contaminants won’t stop at cooling system, they will capture every possible place
where they can get to. In addition, today’s data center is largely depend on electronic equipment
and fiber optic components like fiber optic connectors, which are very sensitive to contaminants.
Problems like power failures, loss of data and short circuit might be happened if the contaminants
were not cleaned. What’s worse, short circuit might cause fire in data center, which could lead to
irreparable damage (shown in the following picture).
Dust and dirt can also largely affect the life span of data center equipment as well as their operation.
Cleaning and uptime usually run hand-in-hand. The uptime of a data center will be reduced if there
are too many contaminants. Cleaning the data center regularly would be a good deal to reduce data
center downtime and extend the life span of data center infrastructure equipment, comparing the
cost of restarting the data center and repairing or replacement of the equipment.
Last but not least, Data center cleaning can offer an aesthetic appeal of a clean and dust-free
environment. Although it is not the main purpose, but a clean data center can present a more
desirable working environment for telecom engineers, especially for those who need to install cable
under a raised floor or working overhead racks and cabinet. No one would reject the cleaning data
center.
Contaminants Sources of Data Center
It is clear that data center cleaning is necessary. But how to keep the data center clean? Before take
action, source of contaminants of data center should be considered. Generally, there are two main
sources, one is inside the data center, and the other is from outside of the data center. The internal
contaminants are usually particles from air conditioning unit fan belt wear, toner dust, packaging
and construction materials, human hair and clothing, and zinc whiskers from electroplated steel

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floor plates. The external sources of contamination include cars, electricity generation, sea salt,
natural and artificial fibers, plant pollen and wind-blown dust.
Data Center Cleaning and Contaminants Prevention
Knowing where the dust and dirt come from, here offers some suggestions and Tip to reduce the
contaminants.
 Reduce the data center access. It is recommended that limit access to only necessary
personnel can reduce the external contaminants.
 Sticky mats should be used at the entrances to the raised floor, which can eliminate the
contaminants from shoes largely.
 Never unpack new equipment inside the data center, establish a staging area outside the
data center for unpacking and assembling equipment.
 No food, drink or smoking in the data center.
 Typically all sites are required to have fresh air make-up to the data center, remember to
replace on a regular basis.
 Cleaning frequency depends on activity in the data center. Floor vacuuming should be more
often is the traffic in the data center increased.
 Inspect and clean the fiber optic components regularly, especially, fiber optic connector and
interface of switched and transceivers.
 The inside and outside of racks and cabinets should be cleaning.
Conclusion
Data center is the information factory today. It deals with numerous information and data. Data
center cleaning is necessary. On one hand, If the “factory” is polluted by dust and dirt, how could it
provide reliable and high quality services. On the other hand, data center cleaning can extend the
life span of equipment and saving cost for both cooling and maintenance.

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Contact Us
Manufacturing R & D (China)
Eastern Side, Second Floor, Science &
Technology Park, No.6, Keyuan Road,
Nanshan District, Shenzhen 518057,
China
Tel: +86 (755) 8300 3611
Fax: +86 (755) 8326 9395
Email: sales@fs.com
APAC Office (Hong Kong)
1220 Tung Chun Commercial Centre,
438-444 Shanghai Street, Kowloon,
Hong Kong
Tel: +852 81763606
Fax: +852 81763606
Email: sales@fs.com
North America (United States)
331 Andover Park East Ste330, Tukwila,
WA 98188,United States
Tel: +1-425-226-2035
Fax: +1-253-246-7881
Email: sales@fs.com
London Office (United Kingdom)
Third Floor 207 Regent Street, London,
W1B 3HH, United Kingdom
Tel: +44 2081441980
Notice: This document is for informational purposes only and does not set forth any warranty, expressed or
implied, concerning any equipment, equipment features, or service offered or to be offered by Fiberstore.
Fiberstore reserves the right to make changes to this document at any time, without notice, and assumes no
responsibility for its use. This information document describes features that may not be currently available.
Contact a Fiberstore sales team for information on feature and product availability.
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