Uptime data center tier standards

The Uptime Institute offers a certification process to address the issue of companies advertising loosely-interpreted and unverified claims of certification. As of the beginning of 2008, more than two dozen data centers had been certified by the Institute. The certification process begins with a desktop review of submitted design documents by licensed engineers at the Uptime Institute. The review is followed by a site visit where Uptime employees examine whether a facility had been built or expanded according to the submitted design. The Uptime Institute has also released a grading system for operational sustainability to augment the tier standards. The tiers focus on the design of the data center facility; the operational sustainability grades target how well the facility is actually run.

Tier level	Data center requirements
Tier 1	1) A single, non-redundant distribution path serving IT equipment. 2) Non-redundant capacity components.
Tier 2	1) All Tier 1 requirements. 2) Redundant capacity components.
Tier 3	1) All Tier 1 and 2 requirements. 2) Multiple independent distribution paths serving IT equipment. Generally, only one distribution path serves equipment at any given time. 3) All IT equipment is dual-powered and fully compatible within the topology of a site's architecture.
Tier 4	1) All Tier 1, 2 and 3 requirements. 2) The facility is fully fault-tolerant, through electrical, storage and distribution networks. 3) All cooling equipment is independently dual-powered, including chillers and HVAC systems.

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More resources from around the web: - The Uptime Institute published a white paper containing tier standard guidelines on its website (PDF). - Matt Stansberry reported on the Uptime Institute warning against misuse of its tier standards. - Mark Fontecchio wrote about the Uptime Institute's operational sustainability grading system for SearchDataCenter.com.

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