Tier IV certification for North Denmark hospital facility

The data center is the first hospital in the world, to receive this certification of the highest standard - Tier IV, for both design and construction of the data center.  It joins a group or 99 data centers in the world with a Tier IV design certification, and one of only 42 being subsequently awarded the Tier Certified Constructed Facility certification. As the global data center authority, Uptime Institute has certified over 1,200 data centers across 85 countries.

"IT is a vital part of the operation of a modern health system, so that patients can be treated in a timely and proper manner and have their health data safely stored. We are therefore immensely proud that we have become part of the exclusive club of only 42 companies in the world that achieves this certification” said Klaus Larsen, CIO, Regional Nordjylland

North Denmark Region data center houses more than 450 systems including 911 ambulance services, patient healthcare records, decision support systems and other critical systems supporting over 15,000 employees. Supporting a regional population of 600.000 any downtime in the data center can have major consequences for both hospital operation and the other healthcare operations in the region. Therefore, availability and stability of the data center is of the highest priority.

“North Denmark Region is a forward-looking organization, focused on protecting the public by improving the provision of healthcare in the region, using technology which is underpinned by their investment in a highly resilient and robust data center, said Phil Collerton, Managing Director, EMEA, Uptime Institute. “Regional Nordjylland has shown foresight by designing and building the first Uptime Institute Certified Tier IV data center in the region. Their focus on achieving the Tier IV Certification for both the design and constructed facility means that the data center is ready and able to support the health service for future generations.”

Unique solutions delivered by in-house employees

The planning, design and development of the data center was completed in partnership between the employees of the North Denmark Region IT department and technical department at Aalborg University Hospital. This means that the data center was fully designed by North Denmark Regions own employees. This is testament to the fact that the employees have excellent knowledge and competencies that are among the best in Denmark.

The partnership has resulted in innovative solutions that ensures data center resilience an application availability. For instance, the North Denmark Region data center is now the only Tier IV data center in the world that uses mechanical systems and variables such as weight, temperatures and pressure to automate outage responses when issues are detected. In addition, North Denmark Region is one of select few data centers in the world that have been certified while operational.

“We are part of an elite group in the world that has become Uptime Institute Tier IV certified, while the systems are in operation, and while building and testing”, says Michael Lundsgaard S?rensen, head of IT management, operations and support.

Eric Maddison, Senior Consultant at Uptime Institute, has participated in over 30 Tier Certifications of Constructed Facilities (TCCF), and regards North Denmark Regions TCCF as one of the best prepared organization he has worked with.

“It is a great achievement to upgrade an existing data center to the demanding standards, which an Uptime Institute Tier IV certified data center requires,” said Eric Maddison, Senior Consultant at Uptime Institute. “It is the fastest execution of a Tier IV certification, I have personally witnessed. It includes an interesting use of industrial inspired control systems as opposed to a Buildings Management System (BMS) and Programmable Logic Controllers (PLC).”