IONOS and Fasthosts achieve tier IV certification for Worcester data centre

11 April 2023

IONOS, the leading European digitalisation partner for small and medium-sized businesses (SMB), and its UK subsidiary, Fasthosts, have secured Tier IV certification from the Uptime Institute, for their £21M state-of-the-art data centre, situated at Worcester Six Business Park. 

As an independent third-party, the Uptime Institute’s tiering is one of the most recognised standards for data centre reliability and performance. It has four distinct levels with ‘Tier IV’ being the highest. Any data centres in this category possess fully redundant infrastructures and offer the least anticipated downtime or best performance because of fault tolerance, compared to other tiers. Most Tier IV data centers are run by banks or other organisations with highly sensitive data. 

“We are very proud that our Worcester site is the only first Tier IV constructed data centre facility publicly listed  by Uptime Institute in the UK,” says Markus Noga, Chief Technology Officer of IONOS. “It’s our most modern and environmentally friendly IONOS data centre yet, and for it to have the highest level of certification is a remarkable achievement, which represents our ongoing commitment to excellence. In terms of security and availability, Worcester will be a blueprint for our future data centres.”

The new certification for the IONOS and Fasthosts data centre in Worcester is based on the design, facility demonstrations, and on-site verification of the constructed facility, completed by Uptime Institute in the past months. The thorough certification process started already with the planning of the data centre more than twice years ago. 

Officially opened in October 2022, the 43,708 sq ft unit comprises a cutting-edge 30,729 sq ft data centre and 12,978 sq ft of ancillary offices. It has a wide range of sustainable and energy-efficient features, including solar photovoltaic panels covering up to 10% of the energy use at the site. All necessary carbon used for the construction of the building envelope has also been compensated.

The data centre is connected to the middle of the UK’s fibre figure of eight, linking the site directly to IONOS’ backbone network with an outside capacity of 3,000 Gigabit per second. This strong fibre optic connectivity helps drive the latest technology in the region to support business growth, all whilst operating securely and sustainably.