CenturyLink Inc. wants its customers to know its data centres meet the highest standards in the industry.
And so, with great fanfare, the Monroe, La.-based communications and data services provider announced today that it expects to receive “global data centre authority” the Uptime Institute’s prestigious Management and Operations (M&O) Stamp of Approval before the end of the year.
“We are proud to be achieving such a significant milestone ahead of any other data center hosting provider,” CenturyLink senior vice president of global data centres David Meredith said in a Dec. 5 statement, adding that receiving the global M&O Stamp of Approval “reinforces CenturyLink’s commitment to operational excellence, 100-percent uptime and transparency surrounding the management of these facilities.”
Meanwhile, Uptime Institute CTO Lee Kirby praised CenturyLink’s decision to pursue the stamp of approval, noting that according to company research conducted over the past 20 years, 70 per cent of all data center failures are caused by human error, and that applying for Institute authorization would help CenturyLink and its competitors “minimize, if not eliminate, operator errors to improve performance and productivity.”
The assessment process began two years ago, when CenturyLink became the first global company to pledge that it would pursue Uptown certification for its data centre portfolio.
“By being the first company to not only undertake, but complete this comprehensive certification process, CenturyLink is setting the bar high for others,” Uptime’s Kirby said.
To obtain the M&O Stamp of Approval, a data centre’s management and operations team must meet strict criteria in several key areas, including staffing and organization, maintenance, planning, coordination and management, and training. In CenturyLink’s case the certification is being assigned to 52 data centres where the company has operations teams on-site; its portfolio includes 57 data centres in total.
Back in November, CenturyLink announced that it would be selling its data centers and colocation business to a consortium led by BC Partners and Medina Capital, retaining its hosting and cloud assets to continue supporting a network-first and hybrid-IT strategy.