Airborne Particulate Matter Survey

“Contamination has been the indirect cause of more IT downtime than all the fires, floods, hurricanes, earthquakes, and disgruntled employees combined.” – Jon William Toigo, Disaster Recovery Planning, Third Edition. 

Using a calibrated Solair 5100+ air particulate reader, IT Cleaning are able to sample the air within your critical environment, to determine what size particles are within the air. The samples range from 0.5µm (micron) up. From this it can be determine how much airborne particulate is present in the volume of air within the environment.

The equipment can also be used to investigate sources of airborne particulate matter. Example if the readings are higher near to a downflow unit, then the airborne particulate is being caused by the unit, most likely the drive belt.

“Perhaps the most important step to take to control contamination, is to contract with a reputable computer room maintenance company, to perform routine cleaning”. John William Toigo, Disaster Recovery Planning Third Addition.

A full ISO 14644-3 survey can be performed to see if the room in its current state would pass the ISO 14644-1 2015 class 8 requirements. This can be useful information to have between cleaning.
From the data taken during the survey, a report can be drawn up, to show the potential source of the airborne particulate matter, how much is in the air and proposed solutions. This process can also be used, in conjunction with a Laboratory analysis of the settled particulate matter in the room.

An ISO 14644-3 survey is also done at the end of any cleaning undertaken. This is to show the room has passed the required specification, ISO 14644-1 2015 Class 8 for airborne particulate, this is part of the current best practice for the cleaning of Data Room, Data Centres and Comms Rooms, specification.