Until now, organisations delivering data centre services focus on building highly resilient facilities by designing redundancy at various levels typically in accordance with standards such as ANSI/TIA-942, ANSI/BICSI-002 and others. However, many organisations have come to realise that without having adequate processes and maintenance programs, the availability levels would be seriously impacted and “erode” the investment made in the data centre facility.

The DCOS^® (Data Centre Operations Standard) has been written to provide organisations with a structured and progressive approach to improve data centre operations management ensuring that the investment in the data centre is safe-guarded. Implementing DCOS^® will enable the organisation to deliver services which are well defined and have a consistent level of quality. This standard is the first and only standard available in the market addressing all data centre operations and maintenance requirements.

The standard addresses the 11 disciplines required to run a data centre:

1. Service Level Management
2. Organisation
3. Safety Management
4. Security Management
5. Project Management
6. Facilities Management
7. Data Centre Operations
8. Environment Sustainability
9. Monitoring / Reporting / Control
10. Organisational Resilience
11. Governance, Risk & Compliance

The DCOS^® is a vendor-neutral standard. It is applicable to data centres of any size and type whether colocation, enterprise, cloud or mixed environments.

The standard enables organisations to measure the maturity and integration of their processes based on globally recognized and applied maturity principles.  

Based on the maturity outcome of each discipline, the organization will be able to determine its priorities and where resources should be deployed to further improve the processes and therefore its service capabilities and levels for its customers.

DCOS^® is an auditable standard and data centres can get certified to provide their stakeholders and customers with the proper level of confidence.  More

The DCOS^® is prepared by a committee under the leadership of EPI^® following strict ISO/ANSI standard development processes. It has been reviewed and endorsed by data centre professionals working in data centre operational environments across the world, with dierent levels of complexity and size, and within different industries.

There are a number of benchmark criteria used in the data centre industry.  These include generic standards such as ITIL^®, ISO-9000, ISO-14001, ISO-20000, ISO-22301, ISO-27001 and others. However, none of them serves as a good a fit to data centre operations as to the DCOS^®.

These are 9 key advantages which differentiate the DCOS^®:

1. Complete standard
   DCOS^® is the first and only complete standard addressing all aspects of the data centre operations, governance and maintenance. Some of the other best practices or standards in the market only address a limited scope of the overall data centre operations.
2. Practical and focused on tangible results
   The standard is written with a direct approach which is practical and easy to use. It describes an appropriate level of detail and relates directly to measurable business results.
3. Based on an overarching IT and data centre framework
   DCOS^® is based on the world renowned and well accepted EPI IT & Data Centre Framework^® which ensures that all critical disciplines are included to create a fully managed IT and data centre environment.
4. Written by hands-on practitioners
   DCOS^® is written by individuals and companies involved in both the development of standards and operations of data centres. Other operations standards in the market are written by commercial companies and are not part of any standard writing/issuing body.
5. Follows stringent standards development process
   The DCOS^® development goes through the strict ISO/ANSI cycle of writing; committee ballot-comment-resolution-reballot; industry ballot-comment-resolution-reballot; default ballot-comment-resolution-reballot; then final publishing.
6. Open standard
   DCOS® is an open standard. The specifications/requirements of the standard are public. The advantage is that once you are certified, your customers will have great confidence as they know what you have done to protect their critical business support systems.
7. Five maturity benchmark levels
   DCOS^® has maturity benchmark levels aligned with recognized benchmarks used by standards such as ISO/IEC 33004. It is not self-invented levels like
   Silver/Gold/Class-1/Class-A/Tier-4 etc. This makes it easier for the organization to apply for other standards and certifications later.
8. Progressive approach
   DCOS^® allows for a progressive maturity improvement in selected disciplines or all 11 disciplines. Organizations have the flexibility to focus on the discipline(s) deemed most important to them first.
9. Auditable standard
   The audit criteria defined in the standard are written with business value in mind and are defined such that they are auditable by authorized Certification Bodies.

1. Improve and raise the standard of the data center operations
2. Reduce risk, improves safety, environmental sustainability and availability
3. Ensure compliance to corporate governance and local codes
4. Enable progressive improvement based on a proven framework
5. Ensure that the services provided to the customer meet the described customer requirements
6. Minimize customer complaints and improve customer satisfaction
7. Create confidence and trust with investors, customers and employees
8. Safeguard the investment in the data center

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