November 29, 2022. KIO Networks has become the first company in the world to achieve Level 6 certification for its Data Centers by the International Computer Room Experts Association (ICREA). Level 6 is the highest level of this association, granted to organizations with at least three interconnected Data Centers - of at least Level 3 - and with ICREA certification. This allows that, in the event of a major incident or failure of one or two Data Centers, the other two can meet the needs of users without suspending service.
"At KIO Networks we are very proud to be the pioneers in the world to obtain this certification from such important authorities as ICREA. This achievement represents not only the robustness of our infrastructure, but also the great talent and high technical capabilities of our employees who, under the leadership of Miguel Ramos, Director of Data Center Operations Director and Alfonso Cueto, Director of Managed Services Operations, work collaboratively to generate added value focused on delivering the highest quality to our customers, and thus, strengthen the digital ecosystem in the regions where we participate”, said Santiago Suinaga, Managing Director of KIO Data Centers.
The International Computer Room Experts Association (ICREA) is an international association that regulates the design, construction, maintenance, supervision and commissioning of data center infrastructure to ensure that it is reliable, secure, available, resilient and failures tolerant.
Some of the requirements that Data Centers must meet to achieve this certification, in addition to the interconnection between them, are: five access controls to enter the Data Center and communications equipment area, fire protection systems, including early detection and automated suppression, CCTV monitoring or Video Surveillance System. As well as an autonomous and redundant electrical power generation system, precision cooling elements, redundant uninterruptible power distribution, and communications that enable the highest level of availability, among others.
"Our Data Centers are interconnected, which allows us to continue offering 99.99% availability to our clients, with geographically distributed redundancy options to host main, secondary and backup sites, obtaining maximum resilience in any situation that may arise, guaranteeing the highest availability of service even in the most extreme situations such as: earthquakes and hurricanes that have affected various areas of Mexico, Central America and the Caribbean, as well as the challenges presented by the pandemic," emphasized the Executive.
To put it in perspective, with a Level 1 in ICREA, companies are entitled to be out of service 18.25 days per year without any penalty for their service provider. With a Level 6, they are only allowed to be out of service for 31.5 seconds.