In case you hadn’t noticed, data centers aren’t cheap. Not only that, but they also support applications that are extremely important to your company or your customers. Based on those two undeniable facts, don’t you think you should get what you paid for? Although this should be a rhetorical question, in many instances it’s not since the industry seems to have adopted a bit of a laissez faire attitude toward formally backing up the claims it makes to its customers.
For example, did you know that there are 139 design- certified Tier III data centers in the entire world? Somehow that number seems small to me when you consider all the Tier III and Tier III+ data centers that providers are offering these days. What is even more interesting is that there are only 50 Tier III certified constructed data centers scattered across the globe. Huh? Shouldn’t the number of certified constructed facilities be the same as those that received design certification? Since the numbers don’t jibe, you have to wonder what type of data center did the other 64% of companies actually receive. Based on this type of disparity, the mantra for today’s data center customer should be: “if you say it, certify it.”