Macquarie's Intellicentre 2 gains Tier III certification

Macquarie Telecom has revealed a preliminary Tier III certification for its forthcoming Intellicentre 2 data centre in the Sydney's North Ryde.

The $60 million, 20,000-square metre facility, was officially certified by oversight body the Uptime Institute on Australia Day this year, based on design documents provided by the data centre provider.

The certification, though preliminary, will form the basis for an official seal of approval once the centre is up and running in June this year.

Intellicentre 2 is set to host News Limited and cloud provider ninefold as anchor tenants at open, with other tenants currently in negotiation.

The announcement makes the facility the first Australian data centre, and 97th Tier III facility globally, to be certified.

Under the Tier III standard, Intellicentre 2 must retain a 99.986 percent uptime availability and must be "concurrently maintainable", eliminating possibility of shutdowns for equipment replacement or maintenance.

According to the Uptime Institute, the facility had undergone a review of detailed design documentation and drawings, a report of tier deficiencies and operational sustainability enhancements as well as contact with the project team in order to gain the design certification.

In order to fulfil the next stage - a 'constructed facility' certification - institute representatives must tour the facility on-site, observe a demonstration and "identify discrepancies" between design documents and the finished product.

In an interview with iTnews in 2010, Uptime Institute founder Kenneth Brill said there had been "tremendous interest" from prospective Australian facilities looking to be certificated but warned against those claiming self-certification.

"Anybody who makes a self-claim to a tier level needs to be looked at with a jaundiced eye," he said.

"So many data centres that call themselves Tier III would require IT to be shut down to perform maintenance on plant. This means most of the time that the plant isn't maintained. When it fails, it will be a much more catastrophic failure.

"We have a process of evaluation as to what tier level a data centre is. When we look at some of the data centres that make their own claims, we find that they tend to be off by at least one tier, if not two. This can be very disappointing to the owner, who spent good money but missed the mark."