Our LCL Brussels-West 2 data center has attained its Tier-III certification from the Uptime Institute, a globally recognised and stringent certification authority, and the pioneer of the Tier-III standards. Uptime Institute has the most experience in this area in sectors where redundancy is even more important than average, such as in the financial and insurance world.
For the Tier-III classification, Uptime Institute has a strong focus on design and redundancy of Critical Infrastructure. It refers to an infrastructure that is ‘concurrently maintainable’, which means that all maintenance can be carried out while the data center operates as normal.
The Uptime Institute grants Tier-III certification in two stages:
In the first phase, the advisory organisation checks if the data center is designed, to meet the Tier III requirements. Therefore, all technical design documentation and calculations are reviewed. If that is the case, the data center receives Tier III Certification of Design. This was how, in November 2019, LCL Brussels-West 2 was awarded the Tier III Certification of Design by Uptime Institute. The Certification of Design was also awarded to the newest expansion in Diegem, LCL Brussels-North 5, in December 2023.
About 80% of the European data centers certified by Uptime Institute have only obtained certification for the design, but there is a stage two to be attained.
Subsequently, Uptime Institute analyses the construction of the data center. If that matches the certified plans for design and if the construction complies with the standards, the data center can then be given Tier III Certification of Constructed Facility. This provides customers with the confidence that the data center was built as per the approved design.
To further support this certification for LCL Brussels-West 2, we performed tests, under the supervision of Uptime Institute, to prove that the data center infrastructure does in fact have the power and capacity levels indicated in the design plans. This was the case for LCL Brussels-West 2, which received the Tier III Certification of Constructed facility from Uptime Institute in August 2021. Since LCL Brussels-North 5 is yet to be built, this second stage certification cannot be attained at this stage.
LCL Data Centers was the first Belgian company to receive both certifications from Uptime Institute. This means that our customers can be certain that our Tier-III certified data centers have been constructed as designed.
“Tier Certification shows a higher level of commitment and quality for a data center, as well as the way they do business,” said Ali Moinuddin, Managing Director Europe, Uptime Institute. “We were pleased to work with LCL on the Tier Certification of Design and Tier Certification of Constructed Facility awards. The Tier Certification illustrates that the data center has been verified as reaching real-world challenges and adhering to the requirements of the organisation. With organisation-specific, component-level and performance-based evaluations and an extremely thorough, unbiased site check, few programs can match the calibre of assessment offered by Uptime Institute.”
Want to more about our Tier-III certification? Read these articles:
LCL’s new data center in Aalst is first to obtain Tier III Certification of Constructed Facility from Uptime Institute
The first Belgian data center with double certification from the Uptime Institute (lcl.be)
Subscribe to our newsletter and receive monthly news about LCL, our innovations, our services, our events
