Level 3 Gets Uptime's Tier III Certification for Colombia Data Center

Level 3 Communications’ newly constructed data center in Bogotá, Colombia, has become the first service provider data center to achieve Uptime Institute Tier III Certification of Design Documents.

To achieve the certification, a data center requires redundant capacity components and multiple independent distribution paths serving the critical environment among other requirements. An Uptime Institute certification confirms that a data center's design meets reliability requirements desired by many enterprises. Uptime verifies and issues certifications for design documents separately from finished data centers.

The company said the data center was built using the 2N philosophy (system + system) for higher redundancy and reliability.

“We know our customers depend on us for a secure and efficient data center experience so it was important that we committed to obtaining this certification from the beginning," Gabriel del Campo, Level 3's senior vice president of data centers for Latin America, said. "The building’s construction process started with a tier gap analysis, identifying any areas of improvement and an in-depth analysis of the design to ensure we met the high standards.”

Massive global network

This is Level 3’s fifteenth data center in South America, adding to more than 350 data centers worldwide. The network connectivity and data center service provider serves Latin American businesses through operations in Argentina, Brazil, Chile, Colombia, Ecuador, Panama, Peru, Mexico, Venezuela, the U.S. (Florida) and the Caribbean region.

All Level 3 data centers are located directly on Level 3’s global backbone, providing on-net access to more than 60 countries. Customers have the option to connect to alternative service providers in addition to Level 3’s network. Level 3 provides hosting and managed services for enterprises, IP-based voice and data communications, wide-area Ethernet services, video and content distribution and data center and cloud-based solutions.

The only other data centers in Colombia to achieve Tier III design document certification are two data centers by Desarrolladora de Zonas Francas S.A. in Bogotá's ZF Towers. The company promotes, develops and operates free trade zones in Colombia and abroad.

One of LatAm's top markets

Colombia is well on its way to becoming the third-largest economy in Latin America, behind only Brazil and Mexico, according to Invest in Bogotá. There are more than 1,500 multinational businesses operating in the country. Due to an abundant talent pool and robust and reliable telecommunications infrastructure, a lot of local and multinational companies have chosen Bogotá as their offshore location for software development.

In one example of growth, IBM recently completed a $17 million data center in Bogotá's Siberia district, to add to an existing IBM data center there. The company offers security, backup, storage, continuity and transition services out of the facility.