TIA publishes addendum to global data centre infrastructure standard

Author: Carly Weller

The Telecommunications Industry Association – the trusted industry association for the connected world has released an addendum to ANSI/TIA-942-B Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centres, which is used globally to design, implement, and verify data centre infrastructure. The addendum defines initial infrastructure requirements and design guidelines for edge data centres, also referred to as ‘micro’ data centres. Additionally, TIA’s TR-42 Standards Committee has officially opened the full TIA-942-B standard for updates and revisions from industry for the first time since 2017.

The ANSI/TIA-942-B standard defines the design requirements for data centre architecture, cabling, ventilation, cooling, power systems, security, monitoring/control, resiliency, safety, and management systems. In 2022, this standard will undergo its first full and open revision, which occurs every five years to ensure the resiliency and security of these critical facilities as they evolve.

“Data centres are a critical component of the world’s digital infrastructure that connects our everyday lives,” says Tom McGarry, vice president of standards at TIA. “The TIA-942 standard helps ensure that as data centres evolve, they also become more resilient and thereby, more reliable for optimised performance and service delivery. With the new addendum, data centre owners can apply the same globally trusted industry standard to new edge data centres that will be instrumental to meeting low-latency requirements of 5G and 6G applications and services.”

The new Addendum, ANSI/TIA-942-B-1 Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Edge Data Centres, provides new infrastructure requirements and design guidelines for smaller edge data centres that are deployed at the edge of networks, which is closer in proximity to application end users. Edge data centres are often housed in pre-manufactured enclosures and can be monitored and controlled remotely. They are widely viewed as critical to the success of next generation applications which will demand ultra-low latency, such as autonomous vehicles, augmented reality, and telehealth.

In addition to the addendum, the TIA-942-B revisioning period has opened and gives industry stakeholders, including data centre users, owners, designers, builders, installers, auditors, and others the opportunity to help update the standard to support the next generation of data centres. TIA invites all parties who are interested in contributing to the next version of the standard, ANSI/TIA-942-C, to contact TIA at standards@tiaonline.org.