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What is a Tier 3 Data Center? An Overview of Tier Standards
Sep 16, 2026When researching data centers, you have probably frequently come across the phrase: "International standard Tier 3 Data Center", but you do not understand what they are? And how is an international standard Tier 3 Data Center different from normal Data Centers?
What is a Data Center?
Data Centers are facilities used to house computer systems or related components (such as telecommunications and information storage systems). When individuals or organizations need to rent servers or colocation space at data centers, they must consider the quality of the data center provided by those suppliers. Definitions such as Tier 3 and Tier 4 Data Centers were created to evaluate these data centers.
Data Center Tier 3 or Tier 4, etc., are evaluated based on the Tier standard - established by the Uptime Institute in the US. This standard is used to measure criteria such as design, operation, construction, management, and the stability of a Data Center. And a Tier 3 Data Center has achieved the Tier 3 level in this standard.
What are the levels of the Tier scale?
According to the Uptime Institute, there are 4 levels of data centers as follows:
- Tier 1: Data centers at the Tier 1 level will only have a single path for power and cooling to the internal servers. Additionally, Tier 1 will have some redundant components included. A Tier 1 Data Center has an uptime of approximately 99.671% (averaging about 28.8 hours of downtime per year).
- Tier 2: Similarly, a data center at the Tier 2 level will have a single path for power and cooling, along with some redundant components. However, the uptime at the Tier 2 level will reach 99.741% (an average of 22 hours of downtime per year).
- Tier 3: Tier 3 Data Centers will have multiple paths for power and cooling. Besides, Tier 3 Data Centers are significantly superior to Tier 1 and Tier 2 in that they have built-in systems to update and maintain it. A Tier 3 Data Center has an expected uptime of up to 99.982% (only about 1.6 hours of downtime per year).
- Tier 4: This is the highest level, they have redundancy capabilities for all internal components. Regarding uptime, Tier 4 data centers achieve 99.995%, meaning there is only about 26.3 minutes of downtime per year.
The Uptime Institute does not fully publish the criteria used to evaluate these different data centers, and there are very few centers that can achieve Tier certification from the Uptime Institute. Among the aforementioned Tier levels, the Tier 3 Data Center is the most popular and the highest level currently in Cambodia.
Characteristics of a Tier 3 Data Center
Below are some characteristics of a Tier 3 Data Center; only by meeting these strict factors can a data center be considered to have met the Tier 3 standard:
Operations center
To qualify as a Tier 3 Data Center, the facility must continuously monitor temperature and humidity parameters at every location. Furthermore, the operations center of a Tier 3 Data Center must feature a Multi Router Traffic Grapher (MRTG) Network Monitor - this is a network monitoring solution responsible for ensuring network availability and measuring user traffic and usage.
Network Management System
The network management system of a Tier 3 Data Center must have an advanced 2-layer access control system using access codes. In addition, Tier Data Centers must also be equipped with 24/7 continuous operation cameras to remotely monitor all activities.
Besides, to meet security criteria, a Tier 3 Data Center must have a 24/7 access control door system. Personnel of the data center or customers must register to be allowed entry into the data center.
Cooling system
Tier 3 Data Centers must have the capability to precisely control humidity and temperature, in which the margin of error for humidity does not exceed 5%, and for temperature does not exceed 1 degree Celsius. This helps ensure that the servers can operate optimally.
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