Comments on: Myth-of-the-Month: Data Center Tiers

By: Dennis Kniery

Dennis Kniery — Sat, 26 Sep 2009 10:35:55 +0000

I wholy agree that you don’t need so much a Tier IV data center but more the concept of concurrent maintainability. I also believe there is a missing link today between the infrastructure creators and the “contract” or SLA with the User community. I have seen many large, “sophisticated” companies that spend the money to have a robust infrastructure and don’t allow or make the actual maintenance difficult if not impossible. I believe we need to challenge the Tier ratings by determining appetite to randomly and frequently “go off the grid” on purpose when wheather and environmentals are ideal. A no-live-load transfer scheme misses the whole point and ironically whispers an inherent fear that all is not well but ignores it by making procedures difficult under the guise of reliability.
We are in Dallas and would like to visit with you and Jim Smith sometime in October. I will reach out to you when time permits. Dennis Kniery, DFW Consulting – 214.674.6388

By: Chris Nicolini

Chris Nicolini — Tue, 22 Sep 2009 09:20:00 +0000

David, I disagree. One of the problems with the Tier Rating system is that to be compliant with a certain tier you must meet one 100% of the listed requirements to be in that tier. So a center could be Tier IV in every respect except one area (let’s say they rate Tier II in that area), they are then only a Tier II center by the Uptime Institute’s standards. So, in fact, they could be concurrently maintainable and still only be Tier II.

By: david hester

david hester — Mon, 21 Sep 2009 13:33:56 +0000

Agree Michael’s prospective…but Tier 2 facilities by definition are not concurrently maintainable. I believe the point is that operational process and regimen is essentially on par with a MEP design resiliency in the delivery of “reliability”…