James Soh. First published on 23rd of September, 2025 Introduction In today’s environment of tight budgets and high client expectations, data center operations teams face increasing pressure to reduce both capital and operational expenses. However, extreme cost-cutting measures that undermine operational integrity can seriously damage client trust, service reliability, and ultimately the business itself. In this article, we explore the challenges and hidden costs of aggressiv

James Soh. First published on 17th of October, 2025. A data center can have redundant power systems, N+1 cooling, and state-of-the-art monitoring—yet still fail spectacularly because an operator skipped a log entry, missed an escalation, or handed off a shift without proper documentation. It was 2:47 AM when Chen, four months into his first operations role, noticed water beneath the floor grates during his rounds in Data Hall 3A. Just a few drops, but directly between custome

James Soh. First published on 15th of August, 2025. My interest in the rapid evolution of AI was piqued when ChatGPT-5 replaced its predecessor and lots of comments and reports about it. This change sparked diverse reactions, highlighting how AI not only transforms jobs across sectors but increasingly automates its own development. There are also governments plans about how the workforce and students can adapt thoughtfully and seize growing opportunities amid these technologi

James Soh. First published on 19th of August, 2025 The Best Laid Plans Two facility operations engineers accompanied one of two service engineers tasked with routine maintenance on a power panel that operates the UPS. The other service engineer worked unattended in another part of the UPS room. They followed protocol—supervision was in place, procedures documented, and the team experienced. Then it happened. The tall service engineer’s sleeve caught the UPS bypass switch—a ha

James Soh. First published on 6th of August, 2025 The Moment Everything Changed Marcus had worked in data centers for five years, and part of the routine is to check if there is paper in the rack for reasons of fire hazard check and also paper blocks airflow. However, he'd never seen medical equipment in a server rack before. The defibrillator's LED status lights blinked mysteriously behind the glass door of Rack C-1 among hundreds of server racks. "Just a quick look," he tho

James Soh. First published on 12th of August, 2025 In high‑availability data center environments, we put in place multiple layers of safeguards — policies, designated safe‑work procedures, redundant power design, and monitoring — so that  one  small misstep should not cause downtime. But sometimes, those layers align in exactly the wrong way. In Part 1, the incident did not caused an outage. In part 2's example, there are perhaps more instances of IT operations incidents than

James Soh. First published on 31st of July, 2025. Executive Overview Data center operations roles in Asia Pacific, particularly in  Malaysia, Thailand, and Indonesia , are among the region’s most resilient and lucrative technology career paths through 2030. While automation and AI pressure many tech jobs, demand for physical and highly skilled data center staff is booming—driven by rapid infrastructure investment, a persistent shortage of trained talent, and job requirements

James Soh. First published on 12th of November, 2025. The Silence Before Strategy Discussion on Facility Renewal or Decommissioning At 2:00 AM, Khun Kop walks the UPS corridor during his routine patrol at a data center operational since 2009. The monitoring screens show green, but he notices what sensors miss: the third UPS requiring more frequent battery replacements, CRAH units working harder during peak loads, and growing c Later that morning, someone voices what everyone'

James Soh. First published on 12th of November, 2025. The Senior Executive Conversation Nobody Wants The technical assessment report sits on the conference table: A third-party consultant report with many pages of infrastructure analysis, cost estimates, and risk evaluation. The SVP for Operations has read through it and is unhappy that it leans towards total site rebuild. The CFO has highlighted the capital expenditure numbers in yellow and has discussed that the decreasing

James Soh. First published on 26th of November, 2025. The Strategic Crossroads Facility Development - Operations - Renewal life cycle The technical assessment is complete. The financial analysis sits alongside it. The executive team has reviewed both documents. Now comes the moment that shapes the facility's future and everyone connected to it: Which path forward? Every established data center eventually reaches this crossroads. The decision isn't binary—it's not simply "fix

James Soh. First published on 9th of December, 2025. The Day Construction Meets Operations The refresh decision is final. Contracts are signed. Monday morning, the project team arrives with equipment staging plans and installation schedules. But you're not managing an empty greenfield site. You're running 150 racks of live client equipment, including that anchor tenant whose SLA has zero-tolerance penalty clauses. One unplanned outage costs more than your annual salary. Welco

James Soh. First published on 30th of December, 2025. The Infrastructure Review Nobody Planned The VP of Infrastructure sits across from the colocation provider's account manager in their quarterly business review. The numbers tell an uncomfortable story: capacity requests delayed, power density limitations below competitors, aging infrastructure visible during facility tours. But that's not why this meeting feels different. Yesterday's executive committee changed everything.

James Soh. First published on 31st of December, 2025. Estimated reading time: 20-30 minutes. The mentioned case draws from multiple different providers and is hypothetical in nature, the mentioned case does not represent or point to any particular data center colocation provider. How Dominant Colocation Clients Influence Infrastructure Partners The executive team at a Singapore colocation provider reviewed their quarterly business report with growing unease. A single client—a

James Soh. First published on 3rd of January, 2026. The Adaptive Capability Challenge Michael had spent 12 years managing a colocation facility in Kuala Lumpur. He understood the power systems, knew every vendor personally, and could troubleshoot cooling issues in his sleep. Then a major cloud provider approached his company about a strategic partnership requiring hybrid infrastructure support. The technical requirements document mentioned edge computing orchestration, GPU cl

James Soh, originally published on 13th of January, 2026. Two Professionals, One Transformation, Different Trajectories In a major Jakarta data center, a $15 million infrastructure refresh is underway. The facility, built in 2011, is undergoing systematic upgrades over 18 months—modernizing power infrastructure, replacing cooling systems, and installing liquid cooling capabilities to support modern AI workloads. Effendi (Senior Facilities Manager, 15 Years Exp): Effendi's imm

Mapping and Leveraging Your Professional Expertise James Soh, originally published 19th of January, 2026. 💡 The Difference Between Having Experience and Owning Expertise Marcus and David both worked through a major $15M facility refresh. Both learned about liquid cooling and high-density power. However, when a recruiter called about a regional leadership role, Marcus could only offer generic bullet points: "Participated in facility refresh. Completed training." David took a

Mapping and Leveraging Your Professional Expertise James Soh, originally published 20th of January, 2026. The 80% Reality: An Integrated Framework for the Data Center Majority While industry headlines focus on the  "Marketing Narrative" —a world of 100–500MW greenfield hyperscale campuses and "lights-out" automation—the  Operational Reality  is fundamentally different. 70–80% of data center professionals work in mature facilities aged 8–25 years.  These established sites repr