If you’re planning to build a new data center facility (or retrofit an existing structure for use as a data center), you should seriously consider hiring a data center consultant. Like any important decision, however, you must prepare yourself to choose a good consultant by first studying your own company’s needs as well as the qualifications, skills and characteristics of a data center professional. The more your company relies on IT resources to function, the more critical is the success of your data center project. Professional assistance can quickly provide returns on your investment by saving you frustration, additional costs from errors and inefficient implementations, and even hazardous situations that can threaten equipment and personnel.

The first step in selecting a data center consultant is evaluating your company’s needs. The consultant can help you to some extent in this regard, but no one knows your company better than you do. The more information you gather and evaluate beforehand, the less you’ll have to pay your consultant for work that you could have done just as well. The second step is evaluating the candidates in light of your needs and their levels of expertise. And finally, of course, you need to make that final decision—perhaps the most difficult part of the process.