The Caribbean’s First Tier IV Data Center is Now a Reality

Blue NAP Americas

An officially Tier-IV Uptime Institute accredited 5MW data center that was created and developed with the aid of Schneider Electric’s expertise is now available to businesses in the Caribbean and beyond. On the island of Curaçao to be more specific, just off the coast of Venezuela, which is a constituent country of the Kingdom of the Netherlands.

Dataplanet NV, operating its Tier IV data center under the brand name Blue NAP Americas, can now offer their clients a fault-tolerant data center in Curaçao with redundancy for every component, an uptime of 99.995 percent annually, and superior risk mitigation from natural and man-made calamities. In theory, this should offer businesses the most extraordinary experience imaginable.

The Tier IV design, construction and certification process took about a year and a half. The investment costs are believed to be around $40 million. The original data center was built 10 years ago by an American company in cooperation with Schneider Electric. Schneider Electric was recruited once again to now secure the very highest and officially Uptime Institute-approved data center certification.

Blue NAP Americas provides a comprehensive range of data center services from the Caribbean including IT infrastructure colocation, private cloud, disaster recovery, and professional managed services.

The second phase of Blue NAP Americas’ expansion, which will provide an additional 2 MW of Tier-IV power supply to support 800 KW of whitespace’s critical load, is also being prepared for.

Tier IV Data Center Design

A Tier IV data center design is the highest level of reliability as defined by the Uptime Institute’s Tier Standard for Data Center Design. It requires multiple independent infrastructure paths serving each IT device, redundant components, and concurrent maintainability. The Uptime Institute is a global organization that provides independent assessments and certifications for data center reliability.

The investment required for a company to achieve a Tier IV data center certification can vary greatly based on the size and complexity of the data center, but it typically involves significant capital expenditures for infrastructure and operations.

A Tier IV data center design provides the highest level of reliability and guarantees 99.995% availability, which means that the data center is expected to have no more than 26.3 minutes of downtime per year. This is achieved through multiple independent and redundant systems for power, cooling, and network connectivity.

Compared to a Tier III design, which provides 99.982% availability and allows for up to 1.6 hours of downtime per year, a Tier IV data center provides a higher level of uptime and a lower risk of system failures and outages.

For data center clients, this means a Tier IV data center design provides a more secure and reliable environment for their critical IT systems, applications, and data. This can result in reduced downtime, increased productivity, and better protection for mission-critical assets.