INTELLIGENT BRANDS // Data Centres
Bringing data centre
accreditation in line with
global standards
D
atacentrix, a provider of high
performing and secure ICT
solutions, has added an Uptime
Institute Accredited Tier Designer
(ATD) designation to its arsenal,
with the professional certification of
Bennett Naidoo, Business Development
Manager, Infrasol at Datacentrix.
This allows Naidoo to design,
construct and assess data centres
more efficiently, for accreditation and
ranking purposes.
An independent advisory organisation,
Uptime Institute, is focused on
improving the performance, efficiency
and reliability of the business-critical
infrastructure that underlies today’s
global information economy.
The company certifies data centres in
terms of its globally recognised site
infrastructure tier standards:
• Tier I – Basic site infrastructure
• Tier II – Redundant site
infrastructure capacity components
• Tier III – Concurrently
maintainable site infrastructure
• Tier IV – Fault tolerant site
infrastructure
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In South Africa, 11 data centres have
achieved Tier Certification of Design
Documents, helping to ensure that
before breaking ground, plans are
configured to meet uptime goals and
provide the sustainable business-critical
infrastructure an organisation requires.
Two data centres have achieved
Tier Certification of Constructed
Facility, confirming the facility has
been constructed as designed, with
verification that it is capable of meeting
the defined availability requirements.
The majority of these companies are
telcos, financial services companies and
Internet service providers (ISPs).
Naidoo says: “Local organisations are
becoming increasingly aware that
there are a number of competitive
advantages to be gained by optimising
their data centres in line with global
good practices. In fact, merely
designing and constructing non-
standardised data centres according
to current and immediate client needs,
and not for longevity, will soon be seen
as bad practice.”
With the ATD accreditation of
Naidoo, Datacentrix is able to assist
organisations in expediting the data
centre accreditation process through
its capability to design data centres in
accordance with the Uptime Institute
topology standards. The design
documents can then be submitted
to Uptime Institute for independent
certification, verifying that the data
centre has been designed to Uptime
Institute topology standards. In
addition, Datacentrix can analyse and
revisit existing data centres (within
both public and private sectors) and
make recommendations on intelligent
enhancements and fault tolerance as
well as to improve redundancy
and maintainability.
“Revenue loss as a result of
infrastructure failure within the data
centre is a reality, and both data
centre owners and IT managers are
becoming more motivated to increase
the levels of performance, efficiency,
scalability, agility and reliability within
this infrastructure level. Add to this the
actuality that regulatory bodies are
slowly increasing the pressure on local
business to conform to best practice,
and it makes more and more sense to
design and build an accredited data
centre,” concludes Naidoo.
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