Why TIA-942 Compliant Data Centers Provide 99.995% Uptime

What is a TIA-942 compliant data center? The TIA (Telecommunications Industry Association) develops consensus-based standards for the information and communications industry that are recognized by the American National Standards Institute (ANSI). Today’s competitive data center market requires a standard for data center design since there is a tremendous variety of services that can confuse the consumers. Hence, the EPI (Enterprise Product Integration) and TIA have jointly developed the TIA-942 standard for data centers.

The TIA-942 has evolved from an earlier networking standard, and some say that 78% of data centers are already compliant with it. However, the TIA-942 is a totally different standard than Uptime Institute’s tier classification standards. Many times, the two are used synonymously to describe data center features but that is not the case. The tier classification is focused on features such as redundancy, fault tolerance and concurrent maintainability so as to benchmark data centers for a certain degree of availability and reliability. The TIA standard, on the other hand, measures availability in terms of a predefined checklist and in terms of component count. This standard is more focused on the data center’s operation and infrastructure elements. Many consider this standard more granular and more practical than the Uptime Institute’s data center tier classification.

Both standards are widely accepted and recognized in the global market. As a business that depends on data center services for mission critical projects, it is important for you to know the differences between the two so as to cut through the marketing jargon and really know what you are getting with each certification. Lifeline Data Centers is TIA-942 compliant and delivers an incredible 99.995% uptime.

Alex Carroll

Managing Member at Lifeline Data Centers

Alex, co-owner, is responsible for all real estate, construction and mission critical facilities: hardened buildings, power systems, cooling systems, fire suppression, and environmentals. Alex also manages relationships with the telecommunications providers and has an extensive background in IT infrastructure support, database administration and software design and development. Alex architected Lifeline’s proprietary GRCA system and is hands-on every day in the data center.