Service Level Agreement
SLABack to Glossary
Standards & Classifications
Uptime Institute Tier Classification
Tier I–IV
Four-level system rating data centre design resilience from basic (Tier I) to fault-tolerant (Tier IV).
Full Definition
The Uptime Institute Tier Classification rates data centre infrastructure in four levels. Tier I (99.671 % uptime, ≤28.8 h downtime/year): single path, no redundancy. Tier II (99.741 %, ≤22 h): redundant components, single distribution path. Tier III (99.982 %, ≤1.6 h): concurrently maintainable. Tier IV (99.995 %, ≤26 min): fault-tolerant. Tier III is the most common certification for mission-critical colocation.
Also Known As
tier classificationtier 1tier 2tier 3tier 4uptime institute
Source Reference
Uptime Institute — Tier Standard: Topology (2022)