What is Tier 1 Data Center ?

What is the data center?

A data center is nothing but a space to accommodate machinery, especially computer equipment, storage devices, and servers. The data centers are classified as Tier 1, Tier 2, Tier 3, and Tier 4 with Tier 1 data center being the simplest form and Tier 4 being the most updated. 

 

What is the history of the data center?

The first data centers were seen in the early 1940s, where the centers were used as huge computer rooms. The building costs of a data center are high and so is its maintenance. The use of data centers sky-rocketed during the dot-com bubble of 1997-2000. To enhance performance and energy efficiency, modernization of the data center is important. 

The security of the data centers is of utmost importance. Physical access is only permitted if you have the right ID. Fencing, bollards, and mantraps are some of the primary security measures that are taken. Other than that, you can expect continuous video surveillance, CCTV monitoring, and an active alarm system.

 

What are the characteristics of the Tier 1 data center?

The most basic form of a data center is the Tier 1 form. You can classify it as the basic-intermediate level of a data center. To be called a Tier 1 data center, the center has to adhere to the following:

Maximum of 28.81 hours of annual downtime: Downtime means the time during which a machine (a computer or a server in this case) is not operational. So, as you can understand, you can have face approximately a maximum of 1 day and 5 hours downtime per year.

99.671% uptime per year: You can expect a minimum of 99.671% uptime per annum. This is close enough to the Tier 2, Tier 3, and Tier 4 data centers. 

Zero redundancy: The tier 1 data centers don’t have any kind of redundancies on any part of the system’s operations. 

 

What are the different types of data centers?

Tier 1: This Tier has 99.671% Uptime and has 1729 minutes of downtime per annum.

Tier 2: You will get redundant infrastructure, uptime of 99.741%, and 1361 minutes (22.68 hours) of downtime.

Tier 3: All the facilities from Tier 1 and Tier 2 are available in Tier 3. Additionally, there are more data paths and backup equipment which will reduce the downtime significantly. 99.982% is the minimum uptime you will get with a Tier 3 data center. The downtime is only 95 minutes per year. This is significantly less than the 1361 minutes per annum in Tier 2. 

Tier 4: This is the highest level of the data center. Although there are talks of Tier 5 data centers recently. This type of data center has fault-tolerance capabilities with 99.995% uptime and a maximum of 26 minutes downtime per annum. 

All the small-scaled business clients go for this type of data center. These are way less expensive compared to the Tier 2, Tier 3, and the Tier 4 data centers. That makes sense for the server providers who have small scale businesses as their clients. Such clients will look for cheaper servers to host their websites online. This can be a cost-effective solution for small businesses. The Tier 1 data centers are mainly used for colocation. 

The data centers bring with them a dynamic infrastructure. How does a dynamic infrastructure affect the functioning of the data center? Well, it helps to securely and automatically move workloads across a data center. There are certain side benefits associated with this kind of infrastructure, one of them being enabling cloud and grid computing.