Risk Assessment Term Paper

3.1 STEP 1: SYSTEM CHARACTERIZATION

This Risk Analysis Assessment defines and investigates sufficiency of a data center and its security. This risk analysis will supply an ordered and sufficient analysis of a data center’s operational environment. This document will concentrate on the vulnerabilities, threats and sensitivity and the measures that will be needed to suffice them. This analysis will also provide the general mitigation strategies to further eliminate credulous vulnerabilities. The scope of this risk analysis will identify a data center’s resources and controls to further eliminate and mange threats that are vulnerable from external as well as internal. The associated risks generally require data centers to have redundant communication connections, power connections and environmental controls such as computer coolant systems and fire suppression. The scope of this assessment will include the physical layout of a data center and how physical risks can be managed and maintained. This directly ties into the physical environment and how it is organized to house a data center. Data centers are given controlled environments; they require certain components such as special air conditioning systems that regulate the temperatures and humidity to align with the servers’ manufacturer’s temperature and humidity range. Temperature and humidity control is an important factor because if mismanaged servers in a data center may generate too much heat and cause the computer servers to overheat and eventually malfunction. Likewise with humidity, if not regulated and controlled, excess humidity will cause condensation of internal components and a lack of humidity may cause static electricity to circuits and cause damage. Redundancy of power supply is subsequently important as it provides a back-up solution for the event of any type of power failure. Power redundancy is usually managed through some type of Uninterruptible Power Supply, UPS, or some type of spider system...