M&O Stamp of Approval Program

Your data center is more important than ever before in today’s digital-centric world. An outage at a mission critical facility can result in hundreds of thousands of dollars in losses.

Regardless of the engineering design, system technologies, and infrastructure that are in place at a facility, the most common cause of unplanned downtime is human error.

Our M&O Stamp of Approval Program incorporates the learnings of over 20 years of site visits at critical facilities around the world into best practices to help data center owners and operators introduce consistency, transparency and industry best practices into their data center management and operations processes.

The Uptime Institute is validation of the processes, the controls, the training program, our team, everything that we have put into place to become the best data center operators in the business. It's a benchmark against other data center operators and that was the main initiative and drive for achieving M&O Certification and committing to M&O Certification across the portfolio.

Mike Casey, President, T5 Facilities Management

I see three clear benefits to the Uptime Institute M&O Stamp of Approval, proven methodology of assessing operations practices, validating our program via benchmarking supported by a third party leader and promotion from a globally accepted and recognized organization.

Herb Alvarez, Director of Global Data Center Engineering & Critical Facilities, AIG

Cyxtera chose to sign up our entire portfolio to ensure that all of our data centers were consistent and that, no matter where our customers went, and in what countries we operate, that we'd have a consistent operation.

Kelly Sullivan, Vice President, Global Data Centers, Cyxtera Technologies

This independent assessment of RBC's maintenance and operations processes ensures an objective evalution. A testament that we are on the right track for best in class in the eyes of our peers and stakeholders.

Stephan Abraitis, Senior Director of Critical Environments, RBC

Questions about the M&O Program?

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Protecting Your Data Center Assets from the #1 Cause of Unplanned Downtime

Human error is responsible for a majority of all data center incidents. In fact, bad operational practices are 500x more likely to negatively impact a data center than any other cause. The M&O Stamp of Approval is a holistic assessment of staffing and organization practices, maintenance and operations activities, and management and planning - aligned with business objectives of risk reduction, reduced downtime and operational efficiency.

Establish Consistency Across Your Portfolio

Driving consistency and operational excellence across a portfolio of data centers is exponentially more difficult than managing just one. Technical and organizational complexity multiplies as you move to multiple sites, regions, and countries where codes, cultures and climates differ. Our M&O Program understands these challenges and provides a framework to address them with consistent, repeatable processes.

Reduce Incidents of Human Error

A recent Uptime Institute analysis of 20 years of abnormal incident data from its members showed human error to blame for more than 70% of all data center outages. Our M&O Program helps you create better process and drive collaboration to establish better communication across levels and departments, resulting in more robust procedures, more consistent behaviors, and the adoption of industry best practices in your team.

Drive Continuous Improvement

Operational excellence is in large part about maintaining discipline and consistency over time and constantly adapting to changes in the environment. Our M&O Program helps critical facility teams align their practices around operational excellence, providing them with the process, procedures and industry best practices that scale across groups, departments, and cultures to create discipline and a culture of continuous improvement.

Global Data Center Owners & Operators Rely on Uptime Institute

The M&O Stamp of Approval Program helps data center owners and operators introduce consistency, reduce risk, and build a culture of continuous improvement in their critical facilities, whether they operate a single facility or manage a global portfolio.

Cyxtera Technologies discusses why they chose to implement the M&O stamp of approval across their full portfolio of global data centers.

T5 Facilities Management discusses how the M&O Stamp of Approval helps them differentiate their product offering from other colocation providers.

CNA Insurance explains why they offer better insurance policy terms and rates to data center owners who earn the M&O Stamp of Approval.

Key Behaviors of the M&O Assessment

Laying the blame of human error on front-line operators ignores the influence of upstream decisions, resource allocation, and organizational culture. That’s why the M&O Assessment takes a holistic view that covers multiple criteria in five categories.

Planning, Coordination and Management

Assessment of documented site policies, financial processes, reference library of site and process documentation and a capacity management plan.

Staffing and Organization

Assessment of staffing plan and processes, documentation of qualifications by role and documentation around organizational charts and escalation paths.

Training

Assessment of staff training plans around methods of procedure (MOPs) including standard operating procedures (SOPs) and emergency operations procedures (EOPs).

Operating Conditions

Assessment of operating set points and load management procedures in the facility.

Maintenance

Assessment of maintenance plans and procedures including vendor support plans, predictive and deferred maintenance, life-cycle planning for equipment and facilities and failure analysis programs.

Over 140 Facilities Worldwide Have Been Awarded the M&O Stamp of Approval

More than 140 data centers globally have been awarded the M&O Stamp of Approval, recognizing their excellence in managing and operating critical facilities. Uptime Institute's M&O Program allows clients to reduce risk related to human errors which account for the majority of downtime incidents, while also achieving business goals around higher resource utilization, increased efficiency and overall operational sustainability.