26 June 2013

To: Worldwide Tier Program Stakeholders

Cc: Martin McCarthy, Vince Renaud, Thomas Baehr, Phil Collerton, Philip Hu, Mozart Mello,
Alexey Solodovnikov
Dear Colleague,
On occasion, notable activities in regards to the Uptime Institute Tier Program warrant notification to the Tier
Program Stakeholders. Stakeholders include Tier Certification awardees and applicants, Accredited Tier
Designer and Accredited Tier Specialist alumni and applicants, and the Owners Advisory Committee. The Tier
Program incorporates Tier Standard: Topology, Tier Standard: Operational Sustainability, complementary
papers, and the associated accreditation and adjudication.
Specifically, I am writing in regards to the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) Standard #942 (TIA942-A), Annex F. This Standard is entitled Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers.
To establish history and context, in 2004 Uptime Institute granted TIA a license to use Uptime Institutes works
that set forth the Uptime Institute Tier Classification System, which had been established some years before.
We understood that TIAs focus in TIA-942 would be cabling and network infrastructure, but would also include
additional content on the wider data center infrastructure that provides power and cooling to the critical load.
With the belief that a single, consistent, and common data center standard was in the best interests of the
industry, Uptime Institute permitted TIA to use our Tiers terminology and underlying taxonomy of Redundancy,
Concurrent Maintenance, and Fault Tolerance, as well as other elements from our works.
However, after we granted this license, TIA deviated from the parties original intentions. Annex F of TIA-942,
as issued today, contains significant divergences from our Tier Classification System, including the loss of
performance base standards and the use of a checklist form. We have found that TIAs divergence, while
continuing to use the language and creative organization of our Tier Classification System, has created
significant marketplace confusion as to the content and application of our Tier standards.
Annex F of TIA-942-A contains the following caveat: This annex is informative only and is not part of this
Standard. The fact that Annex F is informative and not mandatory in nature is often overlooked, as is the fact
that Uptime Institutes foundational methodology is at the core of TIAs Annex. For some time, we have tried to
work with TIA to provide caveats and clarifications to TIA-942 to address this confusion. Unfortunately, we have
not been successful in convincing TIA to sufficiently address this issue. We have also spoken directly to the
marketplace, undertaking ongoing, concerted, and industry-facing effort to clarify the absence of relationship
between Uptime Institute and TIA. For example, please refer to our online catalogue of Tier Myths &
Misconceptions.
However, we have found that significant consequences follow from confusion between our Tier standards and
the Annex F provisions. We have identified misguided capital investments, and misconceptions as to the actual
robustness of data center infrastructure. And, TIAs recent decision to authorize third parties to train to TIA-942A has only exacerbated this confusion and its adverse consequences.
We have concluded that TIAs ongoing use of the Uptime Institute Tier Classification System is untenable. We
have formally notified TIA that it should remove the Uptime Institute Tiers terminology and taxonomy from TIA942-A.
We deeply appreciate the investment you have made in the Uptime Institute Tier Classification System. We
remain committed to the ongoing value of that investment. I hope to update you shortly with a positive
resolution.
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I, with the Uptime Institute leadership team around the world, welcome your questions.
In closing, we always encourage free download of the up-to-date Tier Program documentation at
http://uptimeinstitute.com/publications.
Thank you,

Julian Kudritzki
Chief Operating Officer
+1 (206) 706-4143
jkudritzki@uptimeinstitute.com

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