Uptime's Tier Rating challenged by 7 layer Approach by Int'l DC Authority says "Tiers Officially Outdated" December 2, 2014 Dave Ohara SearchDatacenter has a post on a challenge by the International Data Center Authority (IDCA) of Uptime's Tier Rating. ““The existing [focus on just power and cooling] doesn’t reflect what we need today, and in the future,” said Mehdi Paryavi, president of the IDCA, a research and education organization headquartered in Washington, D.C.The IDCA created a seven-layer pyramid of holistic data center operation: application, platform, compute, IT infrastructure, site facility infrastructure, the site’s space and topology. This model accounts for the interdependencies between IT and facilities that engender high-quality service delivery.”We’re past the days of silos where people say, ‘I’m a database administrator. I don’t care about power.’ Everyone needs to know the impact of their choices,” Paryavi said.” Going to the IDCA web site they say that “Tiers Officially Outdated!” I haven't studied IDCA. Here is a video on the training program.