Brazil’s Odata secures certifications for Santiago datacenter

Brazilian datacenter group Odata secured three ISO certifications for its ST01 datacenter in Santiago, Chile, and completed the process to obtain this set of labels for all its regional sites, quality manager Carlos Salata told BNamericas.

The ISO 9001, ISO 20000-1 and ISO 27001 certificates were backed by TÜV Rheinland and add to the recent certifications secured for Odata’s QR01 site in Querétaro, Mexico. TÜV was the provider of the ISO certificates for all Odata datacenters.

The certification process in Chile began in November, with an internal audit, and ended in March. The four-month period was a record for Odata, according to Salata.

ST01 has 40,000m2 of built area and 28MW of projected power capacity.

All of Odata's sites in Brazil, Colombia, Chile and Mexico do now have these three ISO labels, according to the executive.

The certificates relate to core colocation services, including solution design, physical infrastructure management, capacity management, asset management, provisioning, network management and datacenter communications delivery.

ISO 9001 refers to the quality management system, ISO 20000-1 to the information technology services management system, and ISO 27001 to the information management and security system.

Every three years all sites go through a re-certification process. The process is due this year for the company's older datacenters in Brazil and Colombia. 

The sites in Chile and Mexico received the ISO certifications for the first, as they are newer. Odata seeks to obtain other certifications for these sites, starting with data management.

In Chile, the company intends to complete the process of certifying the Santiago datacenter for SOC 1 in May, in a process advanced by Deloitte, said Salata.

SOC 1 is focused on systems and organziation and evaluates internal controls and procedures to protect client data. The control objectives are focused on data handling, which may impact clients’ financial statements and reports.

In June, the auditing process for the PCI certificate should be completed. PCI-compliant datacenters require physical, network and data security. Physical security means that only authorized personnel should have limited access to server racks, suites, and cages. Environmental controls should include 24/7 monitoring, recorded surveillance, and multiple alarm systems.

All these measures are usually required in contracts by customers, in the case of hyperscale datacenters developed for only one anchor tenant, such as Microsoft, Google or Oracle. However, these companies do not necessarily define specific certifying and auditing companies responsible for the process.

For non-hyperscale datacenters, serving more than one customer, there is no universally accepted requirement to obtain certification. According to Salata, however, for reasons of quality and standardized operations, the company has sought to replicate the same practices across sites.

The company's first datacenter, SP01, in São Paulo; the SP03 datacenter (Barueri, São Paulo state), and the first site in Colombia (BG01) all have Tier infrastructure certification, for facility and design aspects, provided by the Uptime Institute.

ISO certification requires an investment of 50,000 reais (US$10,000) while Tier certification demands 300,000 reais.

UPCOMING PROCESSES

Odata starts working on the certification processes as soon as the engineering teams deliver the datacenter, said Salata.

In January 2024, the company should begin certification for the Rio de Janeiro datacenter, which should be completed by the end of this year, according to Salata. 

This datacenter is hyperscale-focused and the certification is required by contract by the customer.

In 2022, Odata announced ISO 14001 for datacenters and offices in Hortolândia and São Paulo, and in Bogotá to promote adherence to the good practices of the environmental management system.

The company is also starting processes on certifications ISO 14001 (environmental management), ISO 45001 (occupational health and safety management) and ISO 22301 (business continuity management) for all its datacenters in Latin America. The goal is to implement a zero-waste model for operational controls.

Odata is also outlining, with Aligned Data Centers, which bought the company last year, potential improvements to the certification process, Salata said.

Improvements could involve employing the same certifiers used by Aligned at its US sites, to get everything under one umbrella contract. 

Odata has three datacenters operating in Brazil, one in Colombia, one in Mexico and one in Chile, and four more under construction in the same countries.