Data Center

How To Spot Expired Data Center Certificates

The availability and security of your applications and data boil down to the performance of your data center. And performance is achieved when the data center meets a range of different parameters – power redundancy, network infrastructure, cooling…the list is long, and can be exhaustive for your IT teams to evaluate.

Simplifying the process of evaluating a data center and to gauge its performance, certifications help enterprises understand the reliability of a data center for their business operations and its ability to withstand the impact of any unforeseen situation, without your business having to break a sweat for continuity and resilience.

Tier Certifications to the Rescue

Uptime Institute, USA is the leading, coveted and trusted authorised body that analyses a data center facility’s performance and issues them certifications. If you have been part of evaluating data center operators for your business, you have likely read or heard about Uptime Institute Tier certified data centers.

What Tier certifications mean?

Do you recall the last time you booked a hotel for your much-needed holiday? You probably found yourself choosing between 3-star, 4-star or 5-star hotels based on the services offered. Data centers are certified on similar metrics that determine the operational efficiency and uptime SLAs delivered to customers. The Tier certification system of Uptime Institute grades data centers on a spectrum of I to IV, with the latter denoting the highest level of performance, fault-tolerance and availability.

Design Certification – Only on Paper
When a data center operator prepares its facility’s design and submits the same to Uptime Institute, it undergoes extensive examination by Uptime Institute’s teams and upon its successful adherence to Uptime standards, the data center receives Tier Certification for Design Documents (TCDD). This validates that the data center’s design document meets Uptime Institute’s defined guidelines.

The Proof is in the Constructed Facility

But TCDD certificates come with a validity of only two years and is mentioned in the certificate foil, as shown above. Within the 2 years, the data center operators have to construct the data center facility, invite the Uptime Institute to validate the constructed facility and then secure the award for Tier Certification for Constructed Facility (TCCF) – which is valid for lifetime and is the final proof that the datacenter is indeed built as per the design.

Beware of Expired Design Certificates
Owing to discrepancies between design and the actual constructed facility, operational inefficiencies, exhaustive process and high costs involved in construction, many data center operators fail or choose not to apply for TCCF certification and try to pass off the design certification as their ultimate certificate. Do not take their word for it and insist on the Constructed Facility certificate. A design certificate is invalid post its expiry, and that leaves the data center practically with no Uptime Institute certification, and their customers’ infrastructure at risk.

When customers entrust a data center with their critical infrastructure basis TCDD, it becomes paramount for data center operators to deliver what was committed. Any compromise in the design and operational efficiencies can have adverse impact on customers’ businesses.

How to Verify Expired Tier Certificates?

Before selecting the right data center for your business, remember to validate their Uptime Institute certifications on: https://uptimeinstitute.com/uptime-institute-awards/list

Browse the list and search for your desired data center service provider to validate their Tier certification.