Monthly Archives: September 2014

‘Do we need a Tier 4 Datacenter in India’?

One of my new ‘Techie’ colleagues, an Engineer from a premier college, asked me this question during the course of one of our discussions and I laughed it off and let him go. But internally I was deeply amazed and shocked to understand the technological illiteracy of our ‘educated engineers’ generated by our present institutes.

The very next week I purposefully went to his house with a relaxed mind and asked him the basis of his question. Though he was surprised with me retrieving our casual conversation (‘casual’ in his perspective) was elaborative in putting forward his thoughts/questions.

  • Why does a developing country (where the DC industry is still in its nascent stage) like India need a Tier 4 DC?
  • Does the Indian environment, resources & government complement/contradict this initiative?
  • Does a Tier 4 DC address all the present and futuristic concerns/requirements of the related industries?
  • Would it generate the targeted amount of technological curiosity, interest, business and in due course ‘DC Market’?
  • Would this be a good business proposition for a bold Entrepreneur?
  • Going by the fact that a DC would be obsolete after 8 years, would it be a cost effective enterprise?

After listening to all his questions, I could comprehend that even after a decade, the expanding knowledge & activities of DC industry hasn’t been still able to drive out completely the ignorance lurking in the minds of our young DC industrialists & potential clients.

In this context, I could recollect and share with my friend my childhood memories wherein my grandfather used to save his money in his pillows and his bed covers. Even after the advent & growth of the banking sector, it took considerable number of years for him and even for my father to understand the need of the banking set up and its importance and the security, safety and other value added benefits it offered. Somehow I could relate the same with the present status of the DC market with the only change in scenario that we were now operating in a post liberalization era.

I took up the responsibility of presenting the entire picture, status & progress of the DC industry and the rationale behind the necessity for a Tier4 DC in India.

I was happy to know that my friend was aware of the fact that the economic, political and social environment in India was keen on enhancing Indian research capabilities and make ourselves self reliant in the field of technological research, development and infrastructure.

Since my friend was a Techie and had been working with us over a month it was relatively easy for me to reiterate that a Tier 4 DC strongly differentiates itself from a Tier 3 with the ‘Redundancy’ feature —– which offers exclusive ‘Backup’ facilities only in a Tier 4 set up.

I added on to my flow of conversation with my bold talk that ‘Calculated risk taking’ is what differentiates a Leader from a follower and if one had to create a market then he needs to have the right vision, put in the necessary effort to plough, seed, manure and water the market & then work patiently to reap the harvest.

My friend could catch the ‘pride’ in my eyes when I was stating that our CtrlS DC is TIA-942-2 Tier 4 Complaint on

  • Architectural requirements
  • Electrical requirements
  • Mechanical requirements
  • Telecommunications requirements

For his better understanding, I then proceeded to highlight few among the 1800 parameters a DC is checked upon for Tier 4 certification. I knew that the adage ‘Seeing is believing’ is widely rampant and guided him to the related link https://www.ctrls.in/datacenter.php for him to check upon the below mentioned features of India’s first and World’s Largest Tier4 Datacenter, CtrlS.

  • Designed ground-up to be a DC
  • Exclusive Datacenter service area
  • Largest tier 4 DC (3.4 lakh square feet of DC space)
  • Operational capacity of 20,000 racks across 3 DCs
  • Dual active power sources of total capacity of 58 MW
  • 8 – Zone security with an uptime of 99.995%
  • 448 Bit military strength Protection. Encryption at an average of 1 billion guesses per second.
  • Scalability for over a decade
  • Multiple tenant structure
  • Internet Exchange Platform (IXP) Datacenters
  • Captive power plant
  • Most energy efficient DC: Design PUE of 1.45
  • 18 MW gas based in house power plants
  • Load bearing capability of 1500-2100 Kg/sq m
  • Double layered Heat resistant walls
  • Earthquake resistant seismic zone — ‘Level 3’ designed structure
  • 5 layer, 2 hr fire-separated thermally insulated Server rooms
  • 4 underground HSD tanks 210 KL capacity
  • Floor underneath has ‘Moisture sensitive’ sensors with instant cooling effects.
  • Meet-me / Internet exchange rooms
  • 1000 BCP seats in each DC location ‘Work area’
  • ‘Staging room’—Controls Storage
  • Network operation control room
  • CC TV’s & Video Camera’s in place to monitor & secure ‘shared work areas’
  • Conference rooms for controlling conversations
  • ‘Total Ownership’ philosophy
  • Rest and recreation facilities

8 Zone security offered by CtrlS

  • Zone 1 security: crash proof compound wall to withstand an impact of ten ton truck collision at 80 Km/hr.
  • Zone 2 Armed guards—Building perimeter & Watch tower
  • Zone 3 Card access—Datacenter perimeter
  • Zone 4 Baggage scanner /Metal detectors —DC security check
  • Zone 5 Man trap – DC Server area
  • Zone 6 Card access to operate lifts
  • Zone 7 Biometric secured entrance to the main DC area
  • Zone 8 Biometric card access to the racks

He gave me a ‘five’ after going through this simple 5.45 minute CtrlS DC tour & I didn’t find the necessity for his oral endorsement to my views.

We ended up our techie conversation over a cup of tea with a strong conviction that if ‘business continuity’ &’ IT security’ were to be one’s need, Tier 4 Datacenters are here to address this need.

Come, Host in India at CtrlS Datacenters for a Latency Free Website Speed.