Increasing data center standards in Asia

Accredited data center plays a decisive role in the promotion of services, which greatly assists the sales team.

Millions of new users of online services in Asia connect to the Internet every month. This contributes to a significant increase in demand for them and stimulates the creation of new information processing centers and the expansion of existing geographically from Singapore to Thailand and Hong Kong.

Among many similar projects, emphasis is placed on accreditation. Thus, it is possible to stand out among competitors, to appear in a better position before users, to increase their competitiveness.
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Raising standards

In addition to well-known global standards, such as the Uptime Institute , ISO 27001 and PCI DSS , some of the most popular data centers in Asia are locally created or redistributed from other industries. In Singapore, there is a multi-level cloud security (MTCS) standards, as well as the BCA and IMDA Green Mark Data Management and Technology Risk Management Standards (MAS) of Singapore (TRM).

According to Freddie Huang, head of the engineering department and operations in Telin-Singapore, TRM compliance is more in demand by financial institutions as the main requirement when choosing a data center supplier. To keep up with this trend, the company is currently in the process of obtaining accreditation for Outsourced Service Provide Audit Report (OSPAR), collecting recommendations developed by the Association of Banks in Singapore (ABS).

When it came to the standards of the Uptime Institute, Huang made sure his department met the requirements of a compatible data center to support critical applications.

Dickson Tan, senior manager of China Unicom in Hong Kong, called the accreditation of the Uptime Institute level one of the most famous in the industry and stressed that one fifth of the company's clients need it.

“MNC and FSI are seeking to obtain this certification to ensure the availability of the data center. The operators of the information centers are interested in obtaining accreditation, because it is extremely necessary to increase competitiveness, ”said Tan in the DCD.

Increased demand

As mentioned above, a certified data center is of no small importance in helping the sales team to promote service. This is obvious, but John Duffin, managing director of the Uptime Institute in South Asia, told us that data center operators should not try to get a certificate, solely for the sake of a large client.

“It is necessary to understand that the lack of a data center with a ready-made design would lead to strong disappointment,” he said of a two-step process, “the process of design certification requires effort. We take a complete set of drawings and place it in front of an experienced engineer to also provide a good overview for the rest of our colleagues. ”

“For certification of Constructed Facility, we check whether a data center has been created - no one else does. Then we run a 12-hour “Black Building Test” on a full IT load. Our goal is the success of the client and his confidence that the center actually works, ”he explained.

Operators seem to be buying this, as evidenced by the gradual transition of the market from Tier-ready centers to accredited Uptime Institute data centers, such as Singapore's 1-Net North and Telkomsigma's growing list of data centers in Indonesia.

“To meet demand, the Uptime Institute expanded the staff to 17 employees in the region today. Five years ago I started from scratch, ”said Duffin. “I observe what is happening and notice that people are becoming more aware of this. There is a high demand, and we have already made 40 presentations and conferences this year, ”he added.

Urban myths

When a certain standard is gaining momentum, a certain amount of error is likely to occur. Duffin singled out those who were the most annoying to him, the most common being the power requirement.

“Everyone tells me that Uptime requires two external utilities,” said Duffin, emphasizing the misconception about level IV accreditation. According to him, it is necessary to be both supported and resilient at the same time, this is precisely the prerequisite for the accreditation of Tier III and Tier IV, which theoretically can be obtained even without access to a local electrical utility. Of course, the local power grid is more preferable, since it is cheaper than diesel generators operating around the clock.

“There are no two power companies. If you pay attention to other standards, they will be able to confirm this and will be right. But if you talk to an electrician who understands external systems about access to two power grids, the answer will be ambiguous, ”he said.

Duffin referred to the fact that the energy networks in most regions are monopolists, so their scale is quite impressive. The entire national state of Singapore, in fact, works on a single grid.

Finally, Duffin also stressed that accredited level IV data centers are significantly more expensive than level III facilities. He pointed to NEXTDC, the first Tier IV data center in Australia, which has accreditation confirmation. “If you can design your Tier IV data center around N + 1 redundancy, you can have level IV at the same price as level III,” he said.