Data center tiers are an efficient way to describe the infrastructure components being utilized at a

business's data center.

Tier 1: A Tier 1 data center has a single path for power and cooling and few, if any, redundant and
backup components. It has an expected uptime of 99.671% (28.8 hours of downtime annually).

Tier 2: A Tier 2 data center has a single path for power and cooling and some redundant and backup
components. It has an expected uptime of 99.741% (22 hours of downtime annually).

Tier 3: A Tier 3 data center has multiple paths for power and cooling and systems in place to update
and maintain it without taking it offline. It has an expected uptime of 99.982% (1.6 hours of
downtime annually).

Tier 4: A Tier 4 data center is built to be completely fault tolerant and has redundancy for every
component. It has an expected uptime of 99.995% (26.3 minutes of downtime annually).

PUE DCiE Level of Efficiency

3.0 33% Very Inefficient
2.5 40% Inefficient
2.0 50% Average
1.5 67% Efficient
1.2 83% Very Efficient