Professional Services

Data Center Risk Assessment

Uptime Institute's Data Center Risk Assessment (DCRA) is designed to provide IT executives and staff a deep evaluation of all of the risks associated with delivering IT services in any given data center, by looking at the technology, the processes and the people and skill-sets involved.

DCRA is the industry’s most strategic review of any data center to determine its ability to support the needs to the business.

Based upon the principles described in Uptime Institute’s Tier Standard, DCRA thoroughly examines the existing critical facility topology and all of the operational plans associated with it, and then articulates in writing an unbiased assessment of the structure’s expected Tier Standard performance under all defined operating conditions.

DCRA engagements provide a thorough, unbiased assessment of any site, including achievements and risks as well as the site's expected behavior alignment with the principles defined by the Tier Standard for data center performance. The assessment also includes recommendations for mitigation and remediation of any gaps in order to align the site’s infrastructure and operations with the business requirements.

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About the Assessment

Evaluating an infrastructure’s ability to conduct the business expected of it must be objective, based on solid performance metrics and the experience to understand how various approaches will behave over all expected operating conditions. Uptime Institute’s Data Center Risk Assessment does just that.

The DCRA evaluation criteria and evaluation methodology is drawn from Uptime Institute’s Tier Standards (Tier Standard: Topology and Tier Standard: Operational Sustainability), extensive field experience gained by working with thousands of data centers around the globe, and insights gained from the analysis of the world’s largest knowledgebase of data center incidents and outages gathered over multiple decades.

Uptime Institute has a team of global consultants who have certified and inspected thousands of enterprise-grade data center facilities around the world. Our data center risk assessment product brings our industry expertise directly to you, resulting in a fast and comprehensive assessment of your facility's infrastructure, mechanical systems and operations protocols. We can perform these assessments on your owned and operated facilities or work with your colocation and cloud partners to perform third-party assessments on their sites that are running your critical IT load.

Your assessment outcome will be a set of objective, actionable recommendations for risk mitigation and remediation to close any gaps and align your site's infrastructure and operations with your business requirements and the latest industry best practices. These recommendations become a key component of your risk management plan.

An Objective Assessment Delivered and Aligned to Your Needs

Existing Facility Assessment

Whether you have acquired new data center assets in your portfolio, experienced significant turnover in your facility or operations teams or have new executive leadership looking for an audit of your facilities and operations practices, we can help. Our assessment is a comprehensive review that examines facility design and operations, aligned to Uptime Institute's Tier Standard: Topology and Tier Standard: Operational Sustainability specifications which have been considered an industry benchmark for decades.

Critical System Outage Review

The costs and impacts of data center outages are skyrocketing as our reliance on digital infrastructure increases. The days and weeks following an outage can be incredibly taxing on an organization. Our team of data center consultants can assist you in the outage root cause analysis and post-mortem process. This process is an examination designed to help you identify risk factors that may have led to the outage and address the shortcomings and concerns of infrastructure and operations so that a system outage is less likely to occur in the future.

Data Center Portfolio Planning

Our data center portfolio planning product is ideal if you are considering expanding your existing facilities, consolidating multiple data center sites or acquiring or divesting data center assets. Our team will help you identify the infrastructure and operational health of your assets, the remaining lifespan of your facility and the overall resiliency of your key data center assets. We can perform these assessments quickly and discreetly to align with your needs around merger and acquisition transactions.

Components of Our Data Center Risk Assessment

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Tier Assessment

Our Tier assessment is a holistic evaluation of your existing facility to determine the most likely Tier rating based on site topology, or the site's function and performance.
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Identify Infrastructure Constraints

We will evaluate the constraints in your facility's power, cooling and computer room or space, as these factors can have a significant impact on the function and integrity of your infrastructure.
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Infrastructure Review

Our infrastructure review will assess your IT environment to determine whether your data center is following the best industry standards. We will review your key facility infrastructure systems, including:
  • Utility
  • Engine generators
  • Power backbone
  • UPS & batteries
  • Critical power distribution
  • Cooling/refrigeration plant (DX or chilled water)
  • UPS cooling
  • Computer room cooling systems
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Operations Review

Our operations review will ensure that your critical operations, such as maintenance and staffing, are in-line with your organizational goals. Uptime Institute will evaluate your company's:
  • Maintenance program
  • Staffing protocols
  • Organization and communication structure
  • Staff training programs
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Capacity Management Review

Capacity management determines whether your infrastructure and services are capable of meeting your targets for capacity and performance. We will assess your space, power and cooling capacity management processes.

The World's Leading Brands Look to Uptime Institute for Data Center Expertise

Why Conduct a Risk Assessment?

You need to know that your data center is equipped to perform reliably over time. Many data center owners attempt to conduct their own data center risk assessments. However, in the process, they often overlook important risk factors and weaknesses in facility design. We have discovered that more than 80% of the designs and constructions we assess have significant issues that went unrecognized internally. To prevent inexperience and unintentional bias from sabotaging your facility's success, consider a risk assessment by Uptime Institute.

A risk assessment with Uptime Institute will help you identify your security vulnerabilities and enact a plan to eliminate them. Complete protection means that your data will stay secure, allowing you to use your infrastructure efficiently. A risk assessment can help you financially prepare for upgrades and innovations as your business grows.

At Uptime Institute, we conduct risk assessments with experienced and objective experts. These risk assessment professionals bring an outside perspective that allows them to more accurately identify flaws in a facility's design. At the end of the risk assessment process, you can feel confident that the inspector has considered every possible infrastructure constraint and given your data center an appropriate Tier rating. Allowing an objective party to perform a risk assessment will help reassure business investors that you are committed to following best practices.

Contact the Experts at Uptime Institute Today

Uptime Institute offers professional services designed to provide you with expert guidance for the operation and management of your data center. Risk assessment is one of the many ways we can help. In addition to risk assessment, we also have the ability to provide Data Center Tier Certification and education for engineers, architects and data center managers. Reach out to us on our website today to take the first step toward strengthening your valuable infrastructure.