physical security of datacenter with hosting services

[Bob Bayn <Bob.Bayn () USU EDU>]

Our central data center of about 1800 sq ft is being overhauled
and upgraded after about 20 years of service: new water cooled
air conditioning, UPS, standard rack systems with hot and cold
aisles and elimination of operations staff.  After the overhaul
the facility will provide additional hosting capability for the
wide assortment of servers scattered across campus and will give
campus planning services the opportunity to reject attempts to
create mini-datacenters in departments in favor of using our
improved location to host their servers.  The consequence of
concern to me is that we will have many more people expecting to
have access to their equipment in the data center which we will
no longer have staffed.  We will have access control by biometric
scanner and will have cameras throughout the facility.  However,
someone authorized to manage the server for the department of
redundancy department will also have physical access to all of
the core services housed in the same room.  They will have signed
security agreements but their visits to the data center may not
be directly monitored.

How do others manage the physical access by 30-50 people to an
unstaffed central data center and maintain assurances that core
systems are uncompromised?

Bob Bayn
IT Security Team
Utah State University
Logan, Utah