{"id":33177,"date":"2019-08-22T09:48:23","date_gmt":"2019-08-22T08:48:23","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/?p=33177"},"modified":"2020-08-28T14:28:16","modified_gmt":"2020-08-28T13:28:16","slug":"dca-feature-data-centre-certification-good-bad-or-ugly","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/2019\/08\/22\/dca-feature-data-centre-certification-good-bad-or-ugly\/","title":{"rendered":"DCA spotlight: Data centre certification \u2013 good, bad or ugly?"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Due to the confusing landscape of data centre certifications globally, the Data Centre Alliance has, since 2015, provided an independent certification based upon the EN50600 series, the EUCOC and recognised best practices. John Booth, Chairman of the Data Centre Alliance \u2013 Energy Efficiency steering committee, explains the status of data centre certification.<\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n

What is certification?<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The global data centre sector is critical to the\nmodern world. Virtually all our lives are impacted by the use of\nInformation and Communications Technology (ICT). We use it for banking,\ncommerce, health, navigation, news gathering and consumption entertainment, travel\n\u2013 almost every aspect of life is now inextricably linked in some way with a\ndata centre and yet it is an almost hidden part of the human ecosystem.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

A data centre is a system of systems which process, store\nand transmit data around the world, supported by electro-mechanical equipment\nthat uses vast amounts of energy, both during construction and final use. They\nare complex to build and operate. Every organisation\nwill have a data centre in some form \u2013 they are critical to our modern lives.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

It is surprising then, that given their criticality to the\nmodern world, there is not a minimum legislation or regulation (for both the\nfacility and the personnel who work within them) to ensure that the facility\ncan remain available for use 24 hours a day, seven days a week and 365 days a\nyear.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The reasons for this are historical. Most enterprise data\ncentres (owned and operated by the same organisation) have total control of\ntheir own facilities and it is within the remit of the senior management team\nand board to shape the service wrap around the data centre and provide the\nfunding to ensure that the data centre continues to support the business. The\nnotion of becoming certified by an external body is seen as something to be\nfeared. Data centre managers are scared that the audit will highlight\nshortcomings in their own management or skills, poor onboarding processes or a\nlack of routine maintenance etc.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The same applies to colocation facilities, there is some level\nof arrogance within the professional classes that their facility is better\nmanaged than enterprises, because they are \u2018professional\u2019 \u2013 it is their\nbusiness and they are good at it, and mostly they are correct. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

However, there is now a growing\nexternal need for both types of organisations to seek external accreditation to\nprovide comfort to customers that the facility has been designed and is\noperated to provide the extremely high services levels the public demand for\ntheir ICT systems and this applies to business and consumer customers.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

So, what accreditation should a data centre (enterprise\nor colocation facility) be certified to? <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

Surprisingly enough, the notion of a global data\ncentre certification programme is a relatively recent concept. Prior\nto this date, the only real certification that a data centre could seek to be\ncompliant with was a US private companies grading system. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

It wasn\u2019t until 2010 that a truly comprehensive\nmulti-disciplined data centre standard was started by the European Committee\nfor Standardisation, the European Committee for Electrotechnical\nStandardisation and the European Telecommunications Standards Institute also\nknown as CEN\/CENELEC\/ETSI with the EN50600 standard. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There had been other certifications such as the US\nTelecommunications Industry Association with their TIA942-A, although this was\nprimarily focused on the network cabling topologies, with only brief details on\nthe electro-mechanical elements. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

There was also the EU Code of Conduct for Data Centres\n(Energy Efficiency) aka EUCOC and its focus was clear, based on the forecast\nthat data centres in Europe would use some 104TWh of electricity in 2020, from\na baseline of 56TWh in 2007. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Using the EUCOC and KPI Metrics developed by the Green\nGrid, the Certified Energy Efficient Data Centre Award (CEEDA) has assessed\nover 60 Data Centres globally since 2011. A list can be accessed online at ceedacert.com<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are of course other International Organisation for\nStandardisation (ISO) management standards that data centres can be certified\nto, such as the ISO9001 Quality Management, ISO14001 Environmental Management,\nISO22301 Business Continuity, ISO27001 Information Security and finally\nISO50001 Energy Management.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These require a rigorous assessment of the who, what, where\nand how you conduct business in these areas, they take approximately six to 12\nmonths to implement, depending on the size of the organisation and require day\nto day management, the costs to implement each standard is variable and depends\non the size of the organisation and the complexity of the management system<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The EN50600 series is under continual development but the\ncore standards have been published and some are in their 2nd<\/sup>\nedition, the full suite is as follows:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EN50600-1 \u2013 General concepts<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EN50600-2-1 Building construction<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EN50600-2-2 Power distribution and supply<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EN50600-2-3 Environmental control<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EN50600-2-4 Telecommunications cabling infrastructure<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EN50600-2-5 Security systems<\/p>\n\n\n\n

EN50600-3-1 Management and operational information<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also the EN50600-4-X series which relate to data\ncentres\u2019 key performance indicators (KPI\u2019s) covering PUE, REF and others.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

There are also three technical reports (TR\u2019s) covering\nenergy efficiency, TR99-1 and Sustainability (TR99-2) and guidance (TR99-3)<\/p>\n\n\n\n

These standards have \u2018conformance\u2019 sections and it is\npossible to be assessed using these criteria but the official stance of\nCEN\/CENELEC\/ETSI is that there is no official certification programme\nauthorised by them, but that they recognise that there are external\ncertification bodies that can provide a certificate that states that the\nconformance criteria have been met, their recommendation is that if you seek to\nbe certified then your certifying body should be themselves assessed to\nISO17021 and ISO17065 and be a member of an official national accreditation\nservice. In the UK this body is United Kingdom Accreditation Service (UKAS).<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Due to the confusing landscape of data centre\ncertifications globally, the Data Centre Alliance has, since 2015, provided an\nindependent certification based upon the EN50600 series, the EUCOC and some\nadditional requirements. This is explained in more detail below:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

The objectives of the DCA certification programme<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

The purpose of the DCA certification scheme exists\nto provide an industry led, widely adopted recognition of a data centre\u2019s\ndesigned purpose, its operational integrity, energy efficiency practices and\nsite access security. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

These four pillars represent the focus area for users and\ncustomers of colocation, hosting and outsourcing service providers. The\nprogramme ultimately aims to improve decision making and reassure consumers and\nstakeholders of a data centre\u2019s ability to meet its business role in terms of\nreliability, environmental impact and management culture. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The aim of the DCA certification scheme is to maintain and\ndeliver a scheme which is:<\/p>\n\n\n\n

 \u00b7<\/strong> Independent<\/strong> \u2013 The\ncustomer may select the firm of their choice to carry out and coordinate their\ndata centre certification application. The firm chosen must be pre-approved by\nthe DCA which has been supplied with the required information and tools to\nparticipate in the scheme. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DCA uses its own staff and an \u2018Accreditation Board\u2019 of\nindividuals who are free of any (real or perceived) conflicts of interest with\ndata centre industry vendors, owners or operators to deliver certification\nservices.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7<\/strong>\nAffordable<\/strong> – The DCA is a non-profit trade association and will\ncharge a fixed rate designed to cover the administration as scheme owners. Pre-auditing\nassessment work is carried out by pre-approved assessors and the final review\nand award of certification is carried out by a UKAS approved certification body.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

\u00b7<\/strong>\nUnified<\/strong> \u2013 The DCA certification scheme aims to unify and align to industry\nrecognised best practices such as the EU Code of Conduct and the European EN50600\nSuite of Standards. The DCA scheme aims to provide unbiased industry wide\nclarity to minimise subjectivity and by so doing ensure the industry forges a\nmore trusted relationships with data centre customers and wider community of digital\nservice users, financers and policy makers. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The DCA certification scheme is not designed to replace a\ncustomer\u2019s tendering process or recreate or replace any recognised international\nor regional standards, as it is recognised that the customer\u2019s needs are unique\nin virtually every case. Nor can the DCA certification scheme guarantee that\nun-planned outages will not still take place; however, to mitigate the risk,\nthe DCA certification scheme will provide the customer with clear\nidentification of the resilience goal and an assurance that this resilience\ngoal is backed up by a valid strategy that is deployed and maintained through a\nprocess of independent inspections and annual surveillance checks by a third\nparty internationally recognised and approved certification body. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Conclusion<\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In conclusion, all standards are\nvoluntary but, if implemented, should provide any customer with a level of\nreassurance and comfort that their equipment and data is being kept safe and\nsecure in a mission critical environment, together with all the\npolicies, processes and procedures to ensure that in an emergency situation,\nsystems remain available.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

We, at the DCA, believe that some sort of regulation is\ninevitable. It may be at national level or wider, but it is coming and it is\nbetter to prepare now and have all the elements in place. The DCA certification\nhas been designed to comply fully with the CEN\/CENELEC\/ETSI requirements and we\nrecommend that all data centre operators consider the certification.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Due to the confusing landscape of data centre certifications globally, the Data Centre Alliance has, since 2015, provided an independent certification based upon the EN50600 series, the EUCOC and recognised best practices. John Booth, Chairman of the Data Centre Alliance \u2013 Energy Efficiency steering committee, explains the status of data centre certification. What is certification? […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":28,"featured_media":40689,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[55,9442,1489,140,93],"tags":[13254,9002,13255,13256,13257],"class_list":["post-33177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-data-centres","category-digital-transformation","category-insights","category-networking","category-top-stories","tag-certification","tag-chairman","tag-data-centre-certification","tag-energy-efficiency-steering-group","tag-john-booth"],"acf":[],"publishpress_future_workflow_manual_trigger":{"enabledWorkflows":[]},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/28"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=33177"}],"version-history":[{"count":2,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33177\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":33181,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/33177\/revisions\/33181"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/40689"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=33177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=33177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.intelligentcio.com\/eu\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=33177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}