data centers level up to tier 3
Data centers are the core of a business in the
payments industry. We decided to elevate and improve our core to meet the high
industry requirements and provide more reliability, security and stability for
our clients and, ultimately, their end-users.
THE HIDDEN JEWEL
Data
centers are like hidden jewels of big companies. Their locations are usually
not publicly known, but they are a vital point of a business.
This is because they are used for organizing, processing, storing and disseminating large amounts of data. A business
typically relies heavily upon the applications, services and data contained
within a data center, making it a focal point and critical asset for everyday
operations.
Data center facilities are ranked by tiers, not their physical size or style. Small businesses may operate successfully with several servers and storage arrays networked within a small space, while major computing organizations require a much bigger warehouse space with data center equipment and infrastructure.
In other cases, data centers can be assembled in
mobile installations, such as shipping containers, also known as data centers
in a box, which can be moved and deployed as required.
Many
aspects of people’s everyday lives also rely on the functioning and
availability of data centers such as energy, lighting, telecommunications,
internet, transport, urban traffic, banks, security systems, public health,
entertainment, etc.
EVOLVE OR DISSOLVE
Increased business volume and the evolution of the payments landscape inherently require a change in infrastructure. That is why we took upon this step forward to evolve our data centers from Tier 2 to Tier 3. The key element of data centers, and our new one, is the facility which serves as a foundation and the hardware is stacked upon it.
The chosen facility, in this case Tier 3, is the one that provides the upgrade in terms of all underlying facility services (telecommunication lines, electricity, diesel generators, batteries, cooling, etc.) which are fully redundant, in automatic failover, regularly tested and maintained. Here is what David Llewelyn, our Head of IT Operations, and Saša Ilić, our Head of IT infrastructure, have to say about the whole project.
UpTime
Institute – The
Global Data Center Authority provides the guidance and framework to drive best
practices for the effective management and operation of a data center. They
provide Tier certification which serves to prove design, management, and
operation of the critical facility infrastructure which business depends on. Tier 3 data
centers are built for sustaining 72 hours power outage, which
is one their most important functions along with guaranteeing 99.982% availability
of data from the hardware at a location.
They are
also required to be concurrently maintainable, allowing for any planned
maintenance activity of power and cooling systems to take place without
disrupting the operation of computer hardware located in the data center.
Some of the technology, therefore, in our new data center includes: 24x7 security monitoring, 1:1 redundant power supply, 1:1 redundant generator, N + 1 cooling redundancy, and multiple independent distribution paths serving IT equipment.