Load bench and Tier certification in data centers

The Uptime Institute, founded in 1993, has been certifying data centers around the world for 5 years thanks to the “Tier” standard it created. “Tier” certification is now a crucial element for many data center operators, who thus validate the quality of their infrastructure and make it a commercial argument with their customers and prospects. There are four levels of certification:

• Tier I
• Tier II
• Tier III
• Tier IV

Tier IV represents the highest level of energy efficiency and resilience of data center infrastructures. Overall, only 400 sites in the world are actually certified and 200 are awaiting certification. Many operators “self-certify” a Tier level. In France, no data center has been certified by the Uptime Institute and only 5 buildings can claim to have a Tier IV qualification

Indeed, during the qualification process proposed by the Uptime Institute (UI), it is necessary to carry out extensive commissioning tests of the infrastructures (IST Commissioning in the language of Shakespeare). In France, only 1/3 of data centers are tested before being put into operation. In particular, the UI recommends carrying out off-load tests for at least 1 month or even more than 2 in order to ensure the proper functioning and recovery capacity of the data center infrastructures. For American engineers, one of the most reliable means is to use rack-mounted load banks which allow exact simulation of the server load.