Data Centre Design Audit & Forensic Review

The Challenge

A critical facility approaching handover presents a specific risk: the documentation handed over at practical completion may not reflect the facility that was actually built. Design changes made under programme pressure, as-built deviations never formally recorded, and commissioning shortcuts taken to meet a deadline can leave a facility that looks complete on paper but carries undisclosed operational risk.

Independent technical audits address this gap. Conducted after construction but before handover acceptance, a forensic review examines every system, every design package, and every as-built record against the target standard — EN 50600, Uptime Tier III, or the client's own specification — with no prior relationship to the design team or contractor. The findings protect the incoming operator from inheriting problems that someone else created.

What We Did

• Full review of all M&E design packages — HV/LV distribution, UPS, CRAC/CRAH cooling, chilled water, backup generation, BMS integration
• Single-line diagram verification against as-built surveys — identifying where physical installation diverged from approved design
• Concurrently maintainable path analysis for all critical power and cooling circuits — tracing every potential maintenance isolation scenario
• Review of commissioning test records and FAT/SAT documentation for completeness and accuracy
• Thermal and airflow assessment of white space layouts — hot aisle / cold aisle integrity, supplemental cooling capacity
• Structured findings register with criticality classification (safety-critical, Tier compliance, operational risk) and remediation requirements
• Technical support to the client's legal team during the defect negotiation period with the main contractor

What the Audit Found

The findings split into three categories. The first was straightforward documentation errors — as-built records that did not match the physical installation. These were common, correctable, and expected on a project of this scale. The second was more serious: design-stage decisions that had never been formally approved but had been built out anyway, leaving the facility in a grey zone against the Tier III specification.

The third category was the one that justified the entire audit engagement: genuine single points of failure in the power distribution architecture — paths where a single component failure or maintenance isolation would take down a live IT load without warning. These were not visible in the design drawings without systematic analysis. They required someone who understood both the Uptime topology rules and the physical reality of how the facility had been built.

Projects delivered by NOVTRIQ partners and associates. Details reflect work as completed. Team composition evolves over time.