An effective data center cleaning schedule must consist of specially designed short-term and long-term actions.  These can be summarized as follows:

Daily

Daily data center cleaning tasks include the removal trash from the room.   Floor vacuuming may be required daily in print rooms or rooms with a considerable amount of operator activity.

Weekly

The entire data center floor surface should be vacuumed and damp mopped weekly.   During the week, the data center floor becomes soiled with dust accumulations and blemishes.   The surface covering of the access floor system is designed to dissipate static electricity. When the surface is not maintained properly, the residual buildup of dirt and other contaminants inhibits static dissipation.  Furthermore, maintaining a clean data center floor surface will greatly reduce the subfloor dust and dirt accumulations.

Monthly

Data center and computer room access floor systems covered with high pressure laminate should be professionally cleaned monthly with chemicals and techniques specifically designed for access flooring and data centers.   Such techniques eliminate mopping contaminated solution back into the floor and utilize cleaning chemicals that do not harm data center equipment.

Data Center and computer room foot traffic embeds soil, dirt and dust into the high-pressure laminate and requires a more intensive and detailed cleaning.   The use of cleaners and equipment designed for high pressure laminate is necessary to remove the embedded contaminates.  Other blemishes such as scuff marks and stains not removed with a damp mop are addressed with an intense monthly cleaning. 

Quarterly

Quarterly data center and computer room cleaning procedures involve much more detailed and comprehensive decontamination and should be performed four times per year dependant on various factors including the amount of foot traffic, hardware activities and the general overall level contamination.

All computer room surfaces should be thoroughly decontaminated including cupboards, ledges, racks, shelves and support equipment.  High ledges and light fixtures and generally accessible areas should be treated or vacuumed as appropriate. 

All exterior hardware surfaces including horizontal and vertical surfaces should be carefully and thoroughly cleaned with special attention to the air inlet and outlet grilles.

Annual

Underfloor cleaning and structural maintenance should be conducted every 12 months depending on several factors such as the conditions of the underfloor plenum surfaces, the degree of contaminant accumulation on the floor surface and frequency of underfloor activities.

Over the course of a year, the underfloor is accessed to add, move and service hardware and equipment.  These regular activities all create new contamination.   Although the floor surface cleaning activities will greatly reduce the subfloor dust accumulations, a certain amount of surface dirt will migrate into the subfloor void.  It is important to maintain the underfloor to a high degree of cleanliness since this area supplies the data center with cool air.