Client Story: BCS Data Center Operations
"We are a mission and performance driven organization, it’s part of our culture and DNA. Most of what we do is measured and governed by customer SLAs. Uptime Institute’s M&O Stamp of Approval, however, is a very different sense of accomplishment and ‘scoring’ that is very rewarding because our industry peers understand what it takes to achieve it."
Chris Bennett
Director of Program Administration
BCS Data Center Operations
Overview
BCS is the nation’s only independent, single-source data center operations provider. BCS delivers enterprise-level, critical facilities operations through one fully integrated self-performance model. The result: industry-leading performance and lower operating expenses. BCS starts with facility management and layers in IT services, physical security, and a range of professional services into a single, fully integrated solution. BCS believes that the company’s people, processes, technology, and single-source approach are what sets them apart.
BCS’s innovative solutions leverage purpose-built technologies and industry best practices into one unifying delivery and continuous improvement framework. This framework utilizes a staff optimization and support structure that encompasses the entire employee and customer lifecycle. BCS is a veteran owned and operated business. BCS customers include a number of the world’s top financial services and financial technology companies.
Opportunity
Uptime Institute’s M&O Stamp of Approval process is designed to incorporate the learnings of over 25 years of site visits at critical facilities around the word into best practices to assist data center owners and operators to introduce consistency, transparency, and industry best practice into their own data center management and operations processes.
Uptime Institute has analyzed countless data and has routinely found that most reported data center outages are directly related to human error, whether in the form of operator or management error in decisions regarding staffing, maintenance processes, training, or overall rigor of operation. These types of outages can occur despite the infrastructure topology of the data center. In turn, a well-managed data center can achieve availability to the business well beyond expectation and typically based solely on the topology of the installed infrastructure.
Solution
BCS views Uptime Institute and the M&O Stamp of Approval process as the global authority for setting and assessing data center standards, and values going through the process with the Uptime Institute team. BCS found the overall assessment experience to be well planned and structured. The Uptime Institute team provided clear and concise expectations for the audit process. This resulted in an efficient and thorough experience that was easy to understand and follow. BCS found that the single largest value and learning from the M&O Stamp of Approval process was the validation that the BCS mission-critical operating practices and procedures meet the highest standards of operational excellence. BCS’s unifying framework through the BCS Playbook, is fully aligned with industry best practices.
From a specific learning standpoint, insights from the audit process resulted in BCS changing how they monitor and report central chiller plant capacity management trends values from Actual Capacity to Nominal. This is of great value to BCS.
BCS considers the achievement of the M&O Stamp of Approval a recognition of a lot of hard work. The Phoenix team takes great pride in the work done in support of their Landmark Phoenix I partner and Landmark tenant, one of the largest financial technology companies in the world. BCS is also proud of the M&O Stamp of Approval results, with a perfect score, which only adds to the company’s sense of accomplishment and pride. This is something communicated to each and every person in the company.
Impact
BCS states that the M&O Stamp of Approval provides further validation to the efforts of their team, and the pride associated with being recognized for day-to-day activities. The company continues to follow program outlines and best practices and the assessment process at Landmark Phoenix I sets the high standards and expectations for BCS across the board. In fact, BCS plans to evaluate the use of the M&O Stamp of Approval on other sites and undergo through the same assessment to make their teams stronger.
“Uptime Institute’s M&O Stamp of Approval process is a very extensive and robust program. Everyone we have worked with at Uptime Institute is topnotch. Specifically, the auditor assigned to this project demonstrated a level of expertise and knowledge that is impressive.”
Chris Bennett
Director of Program Administration
BCS Data Center Operations