What are the Tier Ratings to a Data Center?

According to Uptime Institute, the international standard is as follows:

A Tier I data center is the basic capacity level with infrastructure to support information technology for an office setting and beyond. Tier I protects against disruptions from human error, but not unexpected failure or outage. Redundant equipment includes chillers, pumps, UPS modules, and engine generators.

A Tier II facility covers redundant capacity components for power and cooling that provide better maintenance opportunities and safety against disruptions. The distribution path of Tier II serves a critical environment, and the components can be removed without shutting it down. Like a Tier I facility, unexpected shutdown of a Tier II data center will affect the system.

A Tier III data center is concurrently maintainable with redundant components as a key differentiator, with redundant distribution paths to serve the critical environment. Unlike Tier I and Tier II, these facilities require no shutdowns when equipment needs maintenance or replacement. The components of Tier III are added to Tier II components so that any part can be shut down without impacting IT operation.

A Tier IV data center has several independent and physically isolated systems that act as redundant capacity components and distribution paths. The separation is necessary to prevent an event from compromising both systems. The environment will not be affected by a disruption from planned and unplanned events. However, if the redundant components or distribution paths are shut down for maintenance, the environment may experience a higher risk of disruption if a failure occurs. Tier IV facilities add fault tolerance to the Tier III topology.