A key consideration when selecting a facility to house your data is the tier data center classification. Failure to select the appropriate tier might result in issues with downtime or unforeseen costs because the tier rating exposes what a data center can offer in terms of reliability and performance.
This article discusses how data center tiers operate and how you may evaluate a data center’s quality using these rankings. Learn how to choose a facility that suits your business’s needs and budget by using the tiering criteria in the following paragraphs.
What Are Tiers in a Data Center?
Data center tiers are a recognized grading system that shows how reliable the infrastructure of a data center is. Facilities are ranked from 1 to 4, with 1 being the worst performance and 4 representing the greatest.
The Uptime Institute, an impartial organization that assesses the facility level largely using the following criteria, awards a data center with this global ranking:
- Timeliness promises
- Mistake tolerance (the ability to handle both planned and unplanned disturbances)
- Service price
This objective tier system provides a factual picture of how a particular Tier Data Center Classification functions. Although it is optional to have a rating, not all data centers have a tier assigned to them.
However, the majority of large facilities opt to request an assessment from the Uptime Institute because:
- Create trust in your company
- Promote the capabilities of the facility
- Create trust to draw in new customers
- Prepare for upcoming improvements and facility growth
For an official rating, data center employees must present site plans and blueprints (Tier Data Center Classification) to the Uptime Institute. The Uptime Institute representatives then go to the facility in person to go over operations and give a rating.
What Factors Are Considered for Data Center Tier Classification?
The exact tool through which the Uptime Society gives tiers is kept a secret. However, the majority of important criteria are widely known. When rating a facility, the Institute takes into account the following tier data center classification factors:
- Guarantees of service availability and uptime
- Redundant systems (the process of duplicating critical components and keeping them as backups and fail-safes in case of planned or unplanned disturbances).
- Infrastructure for power and cooling.
- Staff qualifications and upkeep procedures (mostly the ability to handle parallel maintainability).
- Service price.
- Operational endurance and the facility’s capacity for long-term corporate objectives.
- The length of time it takes a facility to start up a new client.
- Tiers of data center security.
- Carrier independence.
There are no particular technology or design decisions that must be used with the tiering approach. Every data center can select the best approach to satisfy the requirements and obtain the desired rating thanks to the ability to choose between solutions. Which provides flexibility while achieving tier goals.
Related Article
Data center tier 3 requirements