Data Center Due Diligence Assessment

Uptime Institute’s Data Center Due Diligence Assessment (DCDDA) is a comprehensive review that

examines both existing critical facility infrastructure and operations. It provides a thorough, unbiased

assessment of a site, including achievements, risks, and determination of the ‘most likely’ Tier rating.

The review includes recommendations for mitigation and remediation of any gaps in order to align the

site’s infrastructure and operation with the business requirements.

The DCDDA evaluates a data center from both the Topology & Operational Sustainability perspectives.

For Topology, the review assess a site’s strategic value to provide a reliable and stable environment to house IT equipment, and identifies risks to the critical infrastructure.

It evaluates:

• As-found conditions and suitability of the site’s equipment to provide the client’s desired functionality

• Power, cooling, and computer room/space constraints and opportunities for expansion

• Ability of the critical infrastructure to meet the business requirements

For Operational Sustainability, the DCDDA provides a thorough review of the facilities management program and its execution, and evaluates the existence and effectiveness of behaviors and processes based on the principles of: Proactive, Practiced, and Informed. It includes a review of:

• Staffing levels, qualifications, and skill mix

• Training program to ensure comprehension, repeatability, consistency, and responsiveness of both staff and vendors

• Maintenance: rigorous and effective preventive and predictive maintenance programs, vendor support, and a tracking system

• Planning, Coordination, and Management consideration of space, power, and cooling capacities

WHY DCDDA?

The DCDDA is a holistic assessment providing unbiased findings and actionable recommendations responsive to a client’s specific business needs when:

• Selling, acquiring, or investing in a data center

• Considering an upgrade to design or facilities management

• Following an outage or incident

• Changing management or service provider

• Consolidating a portfolio

• Investigating the state of the data center with a third-party health check-up

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Visit www.uptimeinstitute.com for more information.

Uptime Institute DCDDA assesses the data center per the Tier Classification System (I-IV) and Operational Sustainability criteria.

✓ Documents the most likely Tier rating of the site topology

✓ Identifies power, cooling, and computer room/space constraints

✓ Reviews: Utility, engine generators, power backbone, UPS & batteries, critical power distribution

✓ Reviews: Cooling/refrigeration plant (DX or chilled water), UPS cooling, computer room cooling

✓ Reviews: Maintenance program

✓ Reviews: Staffing, organization, and training program

✓ Reviews: Space, power, and cooling capacity management processes

The DCDDA evaluation criteria are drawn from Uptime Institute Standards (Tier Standard: Topology and Tier Standard: Operational Sustainability), our field experience working with hundreds of data centers around the globe, and insights gained from analysis of the world’s largest knowledgebase of data center incidents and outages gathered over multiple decades. The DCDDA methodology responds to Uptime Institute analysis of leading causes of data center downtime: human error (Operational Sustainability) and design (Topology).

On-Site InspectionIn the DCDDA review, Uptime Institute Professional Services consultants gather data over multiple days in order to assess the facilities characteristics and operations.

Data Analysis & Final ReportThe final report is delivered and discussed three weeks following the completion of the on-site visit. The report provides site staff and executive management with baselines of the site’s principal systems and their reasonable potential to meet the business needs, and the site’s principal operating practices.

The report will identify downtime vulnerabilities and offer prudent recommendations and opportunities to reduce the risk of human error—given the site’s challenges and opportunities—in order to better align the site infrastructure and on-going operations with the business objectives.

The report also includes an executive summary, capacities listing, and the most likely Tier rating (this is not a replacement for a formal Tier Certification effort).

Questions?

Please contact your regional representative: http://uptimeinstitute.com/contact-us or email us at: info@uptimeinstitute.com.