Data Center Manager

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.

It is important to understand the extent of an applicant’s leadership experience to explore similarities to the current opening's scope of responsibilities. Find out if the candidate has experience overseeing the facility and leading managers across all information technology service areas, or if the experience is limited to specific portions.

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.

It is crucial that you discuss your objectives and how you intend to achieve them.

For instance: I would like to be the best in my department or I’d love to be the person my colleagues can rely on. I also feel I would be skilled and experienced enough to handle whatever responsibilities might come my way.

Data centers vary in facility and staff size, as well as in layers of redundancy that allow business to keep running even if one system fails. Interviewers typically want to hire someone familiar with operations similar in size and scope to that which the hiring company operates. A director of a data center with a small scope of operations might not be well equipped to take on the role of director for a large-scale operation.

"Critical" power or "IT load" often refers to the data center load that is consumed or is dedicated to IT equipment such as servers, storage equipment and communications switches and routers. Power for lighting or cooling the data center is excluded from "critical" power. It's important for an end user to understand their critical load as the data center - whether managed internally or outsourced - will be sized based on the current or expected amount of critical power.

The aim of this question is to ascertain the kind of leader you are. If you ever get to hold a management position in their firm, how would you handle issues of workload delegation or teach your subordinates?

I am of the opinion that a team should have specific individuals who are experts or most qualified to handle certain tasks, so as a leader, I would distribute the workload as evenly as possible to ensure that the best hands for different tasks are put where they are most effective. This will be done by ensuring that every member of the team has the skill and resource needed to complete his/her tasks.

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 such as this one are asked with the aim of getting you to discuss some of your qualities, perhaps hidden that you wouldn’t have mentioned if you weren’t asked.

“Well, my colleagues will tell you they can count on me. They will tell you that I am a team player and someone they enjoy working with.”

DCIM (data center infrastructure management) is a combination of software, hardware and sensors that allows you to monitor, optimize and intelligently plan power and cooling capacity in your data center. DCIM tools have become essential as the availability and operating costs of the data center have become increasingly intertwined with the facility.

This is a very common question that is asked in almost every interview. I love this question because it gives you the opportunity to sell yourself. Discuss what makes you standout from the crowd and show them how you can help advance their company. Remember to be specific. This is where all the company research you have done comes into play. You should have an idea as to why the company is hiring or looking to hire someone for that position. What problem do they have that they are looking for people to help them solve? And once you can establish this, you are to show them how you can solve this problem for them.

Metrics show business leaders how well things are performing and where attention is needed. Data center metrics provide performance values to gauge technology performance, such as the speed of the network. Find out how candidates select, collect and monitor metrics associated with data center performance.

Find out how many years the candidate has been working with data center services and what positions he's held. A director should have worked his way up, typically starting with an IT engineer role and progressing into management. Progressive experience provides keen insight into data center operations.

Data center architecture is the physical and logical layout of the resources and equipment within a data center facility.

It serves as a blueprint for designing and deploying a data center facility. It is a layered process which provides architectural guidelines in data center development.

Application management tools are used to monitor technology services in the data center, along with facility services like humidity levels, cooling and power. Determine how well each candidate's experience corresponds to the tools currently used.