by Brianna Crandall — October 11, 2017 — Uptime Institute, the information technology (IT) industry’s widely used global standard for the proper design, build and operation of data centers, recently announced the introduction of its third-party “Tier-Ready” design review program, intended to enable customers who are pushing computing to the edge with modular data centers to enjoy the same level of reliability and resiliency that they have in their larger data centers. Modular data centers that carry Tier-Ready status will demonstrate the same high level of performance once installed and certified at their intended deployment site, says the group.
The Tier-Ready program enables manufacturers to work with Uptime Institute to validate the specific designs of their pre-built solutions. Customers of these Tier-Ready solutions will enjoy reduced time and cost for a Tier-Certified data center, says the group. Tier-Ready solutions are available now from a wide variety of manufacturers, including Schneider Electric, Compass Data Centers and Huawei, with many other manufacturers already in the process for design review.
The Uptime Institute Tier Standard is said to be the industry de facto standard for data center reliability and resiliency, and assures customers that Tier-certified data centers will perform in a definable and predictable fashion under a wide-range of operating conditions, including complete utility power failure. The Tier-Ready program enables the same strategic results at the prefabricated and modular level.
According to Lee Kirby, president, Uptime Institute:
Prefabricated and modular data centers have been on a growth trajectory for the past several years as organizations strive to bring business services closer to their constituents. As distributed technologies such as IoT and edge-computing become commonplace, these services must be delivered without incurring the traditional risk associated with remote infrastructures. The Tier-Ready program simplifies and speeds the certification process, while reducing costs for both the manufacturer and the end-user.”
The Uptime Institute announcement included Tier-Ready supplier testimonials:
Compass Datacenters: “The Tier-Ready award makes sense for Compass Datacenters as it helps to assure the resiliency and mission critical suitability for each 1.2MW block that we provide to our customers, with important third-party validation through Uptime Institute,” said Chris Crosby, CEO of Compass.
Schneider Electric: “We are pleased to see the Uptime Institute announce their Tier-Ready program, allowing an industry standard certification for modular deployments,” said Kevin Brown, chief technology officer and SVP Innovation, Schneider Electric. “Modular data center solutions for remote and distributed infrastructure are an essential component of delivering modern applications and, in many cases, are deployed in unique operating conditions. This program provides customers with a streamlined process to benchmark and validate the resiliency of their architecture.”
Huawei: “We have been partnering with Uptime Institute for many years to enable our customers to have Tier-Certified data centers that simply do not fail, under a wide range of operating conditions,” said Bob He, general manager, Datacenter Facility Business, Huawei. “The Tier-Ready program allows us to extend this benefit to customers of our prefabricated and modular products. By working with Uptime Institute to review our modular solutions, our customers can be more efficiently certified for their data centers and distribute their computing, without risk or the need to give up any expected performance and resiliency because they can be more efficiently certified for that location.”
For more information, visit the TIER-Ready for Prefabricated and Modular Data Centers page.
