Data center tiers are very important as entities are interested in cloud computing infrastructures that increase agility, reduce operating costs, and simplify IT infrastructure and application management. They can also be called ratings and classes by other standards.

At infrastruXureD, we design for reliability. This means that any item or path can be taken down for maintenance and the system can still operate.

Tier 1

Enough items to do the job. It is composed by a single path for the distribution of power and cooling, with no redundant components. It provides an availability of 99.671% and a downtime of 28.8 hours. It is the simplest method and is typically used by small businesses.

Tier 2

Redundant items. It is composed by a single path for power and cooling distribution, but has redundant components. It provides an availability of 99.741% and a downtime of 22.0 hours.

Tier 3

Concurrently maintainable. It is composed by several active power and cooling distribution paths. However, only one path is active and has redundant components. It is concurrently maintainable, and provides an availability of 99.982% and a downtime of 1.6 hours.

Tier 4

Fault tolerant. It is composed by several active power and cooling distribution paths. It has redundant components, and is fault tolerant. It provides an availability of 99.995% and has a downtime of 0.04 hours.