What is ANSI/TIA-942 and How Does It Guarantee Availability?

In April 2005, the Telecommunications Industry Association (TIA) published the TIA-942 standard with the goal of unifying criteria for the design of technology and communications environments. This standard is based on a set of specifications for communications and structured cabling, and it expands into infrastructure subsystems by establishing guidelines to classify these subsystems according to the level of availability required. It defines four tiers based on the redundancy needed to achieve high availability.

Currently, Pentafon is the only contact center in Mexico with a TIA-942 certified data center, at Tier II, which guarantees 99.741% availability.

Availability is a critical property that must be preserved to ensure business continuity and uninterrupted operations. There are external risk factors to information—such as fire—that can destroy data and cause significant losses to an organization.

ANSI/TIA-942-B is the foundational framework used by certifying bodies for data centers, as it enables and regulates all the specialties that comprise them.

To achieve this certification, a company must make significant investments in:

• Design of the data center areas

• Certified structured cabling

• Raised flooring

• Fire-retardant paint

• Redundant electrical circuits

• Redundant UPS systems and backup generators (N+1)

• Redundant cooling systems

• Active maintenance policies

• Emergency lighting

• Grounding systems

• Labeling of both electrical and structured cabling

• Fluid detection systems

• Fire detection and suppression systems

• ATS (Automatic Transfer Switches)

• Environmental monitoring systems (temperature, humidity, etc.)

• CCTV

• NOC (Network Operations Center)

• Access control with two-factor authentication

• Separate rooms for power equipment (UPS and generators), telecommunications, and data center infrastructure

• Signage in all rooms

ANSI/TIA-942 divides the supporting infrastructure of a data center into four subsystems:

• Telecommunications

• Architecture

• Electrical system

• Mechanical system

The main benefit of this certification is the guarantee of availability. ANSI defines four classifications called Tiers, which determine the availability level of a data center:

• Tier I: Basic Data Center

  A Tier I data center is susceptible to both planned and unplanned interruptions. The maximum availability rate is 99.671%.

• Tier II: Redundant Components

  Data centers with redundant components are less susceptible to interruptions. The maximum availability rate is 99.741%.

• Tier III: Concurrent Maintenance

  This type of data center allows for planned maintenance on any infrastructure component without interrupting operations. Many Tier III data centers are designed to be upgraded to Tier IV when business needs justify the cost. The maximum availability rate is 99.982%.

• Tier IV: Fault Tolerant

  This data center can perform any planned activity without interrupting critical loads and is also fault-tolerant, meaning it can continue operating even during an unplanned critical event. The maximum availability rate is 99.995%.

For Tier IV requirements, some organizations demand “five nines” availability, which means 99.995% uptime—equivalent to just over five minutes of downtime per year.

In conclusion, the purpose of the TIA-942 standard is to provide a set of recommendations and guidelines for the design and installation of data centers.

The TIA-942 standard and tier classification are gaining traction across Latin America. This is a positive development, as it encourages organizations to reassess their infrastructure needs in a rational way, aligned with the availability requirements of their business operations.