Tier 1 Service Providers

From an outside perspective, many people make the common assumption that most data centres are similar. While this is true to some extent, there are actual four distinct categories of data centre service providers. Their level of service is defined as a Tier. It is these Tiers that provide companies with a method to understand the uptime of a data centre.

Tiers play a large role in helping companies not only understand what they can expect to get in terms of performance for a data centre service provider, but also help them determine if it is a good investment and what type of return they can expect from investing. So, whether you are looking into building a data centre internally or seeking out a service provider, understanding which Tier the data centre is will have a large impact on services and capabilities.

Understanding Tier 1 data centre service

When it comes to data centre uptime, Tier 1 is the least reliable, even though it still provides more than 99% uptime. This type of service is ideal for small businesses, sole proprietors and people that use the data centre for personal reasons.

Here are some the features that are associated with a Tier 1 data centre:

• A guaranteed uptime of 99.671% availability of hardware from the data centre
  
• Approximately 29 hours of downtime over the course of a calendar year (based on uptime)
  
• No redundancy for data storage
  
• A single and non-redundant distribution path that is used to host the IT equipment. There is only connect for power and cooling distribution
  
• They are susceptive to planned and unplanned downtime
  
• They take approximately 12 weeks to implement into your company if you are hosting an internal data centre
  
• In order to perform system maintenance, the entire system must be completely shut down, which can be an issue for larger companies.

What is the different between Tier 1 and Tier 2,3,4 service providers?

Tier 1 is the most basic form of a data centre, with Tier 4 being the most complex and comprehensive in terms of the services provided. Essentially, each Tier builds upon the last and adds additional capabilities. It is these capabilities that help to increase the uptime availability of the data centre.

Here is a breakdown of what is included in the different Tiers after Tier 1:

• Tier 2 has guaranteed up time of 99.741% and is equipped with redundancy capabilities
  
• Tier 3 has guaranteed up time of 99,982% and adds multiple uplinks and dual power components
  
• Tier 4 has guaranteed up time of 99.995% and all parts are fault tolerant and dual powered Overall, the main difference is the capabilities that are provided to the customer, and the price that you will pay for the data centre services.

What to expect from Tier 1 service providers

Companies need to have a realistic expectation of what they can expect from Tier 1 data centres. They will not provide the guarantee or capabilities of a Tier 4, but a Tier 1 system is ideal for many companies.

Higher Tier service providers are meant for large enterprises that need to house large amounts of data. So, if you are a small business, a Tier 1 service provider should be able to effectively meet your needs.