In General there are two types of data centers or server rooms – those managed by the company that owns the servers, and those that are managed by a third party.
Either way the security surrounding these servers should stay the same. In the 21st Century so much of what we do revolves around the web and the information collected, transferred and documented on the web. This flow and storage of information is essentially what runs a large of the companies out there. This information is in turn transferred and stored in servers – thus servers are an integral part of a company and should be treated as such.
Firewalls, spam filters, security software etc should be set up on the servers, this helps to protect against and hackers trying to access your ever so precious data. The security software should regularly scan all the files to make sure none of them have been tampered with. Furthermore passwords to these servers should only be given to the necessary employees – there is no point taking the risk of allowing everyone in your company access to the servers.
The security of the building or room in which the servers are housed is also incredibly important. Again access should be restricted so that only necessary employees are capable of accessing the server room; also any access should be documented.
The server room should obviously have a lock on it so that only those with the code or key can enter. This security can then be doubled up by having lockable server stacks so that even if someone gains access to the server room they still have to get into the server stacks before accessing the servers. However, this comes with its own issues in that any maintenance or changes to the servers (especially if urgent) will obviously take longer if the each server stacks needs to be individually unlocked.
An interesting example of server room security is to have glass or Perspex walls. This makes unauthorized access very conspicuous but is obviously fully dependent the size of your server room… it only really works for a handful of server stacks that rather than a whole warehouse of stacks!
These are only a few examples of security measures that a company can take to help protect the information housed in their servers – also bear in mind that the servers themselves are valuable pieces of hardware. There are a multitude of other security measures that can be implemented in the design phase of a data center or server room. Companies exist that design and build incredibly secure server rooms for a variety of industries even ones that have blast proof doors for the military! It is sometimes best to use third parties with relevant experience to make sure that you have the best possible security for the servers. This can range from IT support companies that can manage your firewalls and internet security, all the way to firms that provide security personnel and equipment.