Organization:Uptime Institute
| File:Logo of the Uptime Institute.png | |
| Type of business | Private |
|---|---|
| Available in | English |
| Founded | 1993 |
| Headquarters | 5470 Shilshole Ave NW, Seattle, Washington (state) 98107 , |
| Area served | North America, South America, Europe, Middle East, Asia Pacific, South Africa |
| Founder(s) | Kenneth G. Brill[1] |
| Key people | Martin V. McCarthy, CEO W. Pitt Turner IV P.E., Executive Director, Lee Kirby CTO, |
| Services | Tier Certification Management and Operations (M&O) Digital Infrastructure Services Professional Training & Development |
| Website | http://uptimeinstitute.com |
Uptime Institute is an American professional services organization focused on improving the performance, efficiency, and reliability of business critical infrastructure through innovation, collaboration, and independent certifications. It is best known for its widely adopted "Tier Standard" and the associated certification of data center compliance with the standard.
History
Founded in 1993 by Kenneth G. Brill, the Uptime Institute was founded as an industry proponent to help owners and operators quantify and qualify their ability to provide a predictable level of performance from data centers, regardless of the status of external factors, such as power utilities. In 2009, the Uptime Institute was acquired by The 451 Group .[2]
Since then, the Seattle-based Uptime Institute has been an independent division of The 451 Group[3] (which is headquartered in New York City ) with worldwide offices in locations including San Francisco, Washington DC, London, Boston, Seattle, Denver, São Paulo, Dubai, Shanghai and Singapore.
The 451 Group also owns 451 Research, a technology-industry syndicated research and data firm.
Business
Uptime Institute serves all stakeholders responsible for IT service availability through industry leading standards, education, peer-to-peer networking, consulting, and award programs delivered to enterprise organizations and third-party operators, manufacturers, and providers. Uptime Institute is recognized globally for the creation and administration of the Tier Standards & Certifications for Data Center Design, Construction, and Operations, along with its Management & Operations (M&O) Stamp of Approval, FORCSS® methodology, and Efficient IT Stamp of Approval.
Uptime Institute – has the commercial tag line "The Global Data Center Authority®". Visit www.uptimeinstitute.com for more information. [4]
Tier certifications
The Uptime Institute's data center tier concepts have grown from a simple publication in the late 1990s of the Tier Classifications Define Site Infrastructure Performance white paper [5] to a globally recognized standard guiding design and investment for data centers globally. The data center Tier standards are a standardized methodology used to determine availability in a facility. It offers companies a way to measure return on investment (ROI) and define desired levels of delivered performance. As of 2017, more than 1000 data centers worldwide have formally certified their data centers using the Tier standard.
There are two parts of the Tier certification process:
- Tier Certification of Design Documents - typically the first step in the Tier process and used to align the design and construction of a new facility with an organization's business needs.
- Tier Certification of Constructed Facility - the final part of the process which assures that the actual constructed data centers delivers the results specified in the Tier Standard: Topology specification.
The Tier certification refers only to the physical topology of the data centers' infrastructure that directly affects the computer room operation. The certifications are awarded in four levels:
- Tier IV - Fault tolerant site infrastructure
- Tier III - Concurrently maintainable site infrastructure
- Tier II - Redundant capacity components site infrastructure (redundant)
- Tier I - Basic site infrastructure (non-redundant)
The full Tier Standard:Topology is available on the Uptime Institute website[6]
Other design standards have been created by various industry groups over the years. All of these other specifications share the common trait that they are self-certified and the author of the specification does not get involved with the certification/assurance of standard compliance. One such standard, Telecommunications Industry Association's standard, TIA-942.[7] Uptime Institute and TIA agree on clear separation between their respective benchmarking systems to avoid industry confusion and drive accountability.[8]
Operational Sustainability certification
In addition to the aforementioned Tier certification, Uptime Institute also awards Operational Sustainability certification which aims at management, operations and maintenance of the site rather than its design topology. The Operational Sustainability establishes the behaviors and risks beyond the Tier Classification System (I, II, III, IV) that impact long-term data center performance. It builds a bridge between the site management behaviors and the Tier functionality of the site infrastructure. The three major elements of Operational Sustainability certification are
- Management and operations (e.g. staffing presence, staffing qualification, maintenance programs)
- Building characteristics (e.g. additional UPS)
- Site location (e.g. flooding, transportation corridors)
Operational Sustainability Certification is issued in three levels:
- Gold - full uptime potential of the installed infrastructure realized or exceeded
- Silver - opportunities for improvement in order to achieve the full potential of the installed infrastructure
- Bronze - significant opportunities for improvement in order to achieve the full potential of the installed infrastructure
The Operational Sustainability certification becomes suffix to Tier Certification, thus leading to e.g. Tier III Gold
See also
References
- ↑ Kenneth G. Brill ’66 at redlands.edu
- ↑ Company Overview of The 451 Group LLC at investing.businessweek.com
- ↑ The 451 Group - Our Company at 451research.com
- ↑ https://uptimeinstitute.com/about-ui/news-press
- ↑ Tier Classifications Define Site Infrastructure Performance
- ↑ https://uptimeinstitute.com/resources/asset/tier-standard-topology
- ↑ TIA-942 TIA-942 Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers at ihs.com
- ↑ http://uptimeinstitute.com/component/content/article/8-certifications/203-tiersvstia2014
External links
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