Above: Curaçao’s Blue NAP Americas. Photos courtesy Schneider.

Businesses in Curaçao now have access to the world-class benefits of a Tier-IV certified data center through Blue NAP Americas, designed and built through the expertise of Schneider Electric. This data center is the only one with such certifications in the Caribbean region.

Blue NAP Americas, the most advanced data center in the region, offers a full suite of data center services including infrastructure co-location, private cloud, disaster recovery and professional services.

A data center receiving a Tier-IV certification from the Uptime Institute is indicative of the highest level of certification obtainable. The New York-based institute created the data center Tier classification levels over 25 years ago, and they remain the international standard for data center performance.

These classifications are objective and reliable methods for comparing the performance of one site infrastructure against another and aligning infrastructure investments to business goals.

In the case of Blue NAP Americas, this means it has the ability to provide businesses with the most exceptional experience possible – a fault-tolerant data center with redundancy for every component; an uptime of 99.995 per cent per year; and superior risk mitigation from natural and man-made disasters.

However, the road to such certification inevitably requires the skillset of an industry-leader in data centers. As Blue NAP Americas was striving to reach this certification, it knew it needed a strong partner, and found one in Schneider Electric.

“We worked closely with the Uptime Institute to ensure that the design met the very stringent Tier-IV certification requirements,” said Andres Vasquez,  Global Segment Director, Schneider Electric. “We supported Blue NAP Americas with the design, budgetary approvals, construction, start up, and launch of the operations.”

Schneider Electric worked closely on the design, construction, commissioning, and certification processes – all of which took approximately one and a half years. At the time of the certification, Blue NAP Americas was the second data center to be certified as a true Tier-IV design and constructed data center facility in Latin America.

“Schneider Electric very quickly understood our main requirements,” said Danilo Zabala, CEO of Blue NAP Americas. “The most important aspect of any datacenter, but especially a Tier-IV certified datacenter, is the critical electrical power supply, distribution and management. SE was imperative in designing the critical power supply of the datacenter according to the Tier-IV redundancy requirements.”

As Blue NAP Americas approaches its 10th anniversary, Schneider Electric will again play a major role in the design, engineering, and supply of critical infrastructure that are due to be replaced and/or upgraded, to ensure that the data center continues to meet the rigorous demands of a Tier-IV certification.

“In addition to the equipment refresh project, Blue NAP Americas is also preparing for a phase two expansion, which will add another 2 MW of Tier-IV power supply to feed 800 KW of WhiteSpace critical load,” said Zabala. “Based on past experience, we will look no further than Schneider Electric to help implement the expansion.”