The Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) have published TIA-942 for Data Center Standards. The TIA-942 publication have tiered the Data Centers into the following four categories by the levels of Availability, Redundancy and Downtime:

Tier 1 – Basic Data Center

• 99.671% Availability


• No redundancy


• Single path for power and cooling distribution


• May or may not have a raised floor, UPS, or generator


• Annual downtime 28.8 hours

Tier 2 – Redundant Components

• 99.741% Availability


• Redundant components


• Single path for power and cooling distribution


• Includes raised floors, UPS, and generators


• Annual downtime 22.0 hours

Tier 3 – Concurrently Maintainable

• 99.982% Availability


• Single path for power and cooling distribution


• Redundant components


• Includes raised floors, UPS and generators


• Annual downtime 1.6 hours

Tier 4 – Fault Tolerant

• 99.999% Availability


• Multiple active power and cooling distributions paths


• Includes raised floors, UPS and generator


• Multiple active distribution path

Disclaimer

The thoughts expressed in the blog are those of the author and do not represent necessarily the official policy or position of any other agency, organization, employer, or company. Assumptions made in the study are not reflective of the point of view(s) of any entity other than the author. Since we are critically thinking human beings, the point of view(s) is always subject to change, revision and rethinking at any time. While reasonable efforts have been made to obtain accurate information, the author makes no warranty, expressed or implied as to its accuracy.