Digital Realty Achieves “Five Nines” of Uptime for 14th Consecutive Year

March 24, 2021

PlatformDIGITAL® provides trusted foundation for resilient digital business as enterprises and industries accelerate digital transformations during a year of “remote everything”

AUSTIN, Texas, March 24, 2021 /PRNewswire/ — Digital Realty (NYSE:DLR, news, filings), a leading global provider of cloud- and carrier-neutral data center, colocation and interconnection solutions, achieved “five nines” of uptime across its global data center platform for the 14^th consecutive year, exceeding 99.999 percent availability throughout 2020 and building upon a longstanding track record of operational excellence.

Resiliency and reliability of digital services were critical throughout 2020 as the world suddenly shifted to “remote everything” during the pandemic, and businesses transformed rapidly to serve evolving customer needs. Digital Realty’s business continuity plans functioned as designed, ensuring its global portfolio of more than 280 data centers around the world remained fully operational and continued to serve as the central nervous system of the digital economy – powering everything from business communication, remote learning, telemedicine and streaming entertainment to e-commerce and contactless payments.

Digital Realty maintained its track record of uptime throughout 2020 while significantly extending the reach of PlatformDIGITAL®, the company’s global data center platform, which enables more than 4,000 customers in 24 countries to scale their digital business initiatives and solve their global coverage, capacity and connectivity needs with a single data center provider. Most notably, in March 2020, Digital Realty completed its combination with Interxion, bringing more than 50 additional facilities across 11 countries in EMEA onto the platform, enabling more customers to deploy their IT infrastructure at key centers of data exchange, bringing communities of users, applications, clouds and networks to the data. In the company’s first year of combined operations, Digital Realty achieved “five nines” of availability across its global data center portfolio, including the recently integrated Interxion business in EMEA.

In addition, Digital Realty maintained operational continuity for its data center customers in Dallas, Houston and Austin throughout the extreme weather conditions in Texas in early 2021. IT loads from key centers of data exchange in Texas were successfully transferred to onsite generator power, while maintaining 100% uptime for critical and essential digital services. Digital Realty worked closely with longstanding national supply chain partners to keep generators fully fueled, supporting business continuity for connected data communities in Texas and beyond.

In addition to operational excellence, Digital Realty maintained its industry-leading commitment to sustainability during the unique circumstances of the past year. The company achieved EPA ENERGY STAR® certification for 31 data centers in 2020, more than any other data center provider. Digital Realty was also named ENERGY STAR® Partner of the Year in 2020 by the U.S. Environmental Protection Agency. In addition, Digital Realty earned Nareit’s “Leader in the Light” award for data center sustainability for the fourth consecutive year in 2020. Finally, Digital Realty joined the Science-Based Targets initiative (SBTi) in 2020, setting ambitious new climate impact reduction targets, in line with a 1.5-degree climate change scenario by 2030.

Industry Perspectives
“As the world adapted to the challenges of 2020, we felt a great responsibility to do our part to keep the central nervous system of the digital economy running smoothly, while putting the health and safety of our employees, customers and partners first. Achieving ‘five nines’ of uptime is especially meaningful this year, as it reflects the resiliency and commitment of our team members around the world who are focused on delivering operational excellence. We owe a debt of gratitude to our employees in critical operational roles who have continued to play a vital role in letting people around the world connect and keeping commerce and information flowing on PlatformDIGITAL®.”

– A. William Stein, Chief Executive Officer, Digital Realty

“In a wide range of surveys and conversations with senior executives around the world, we consistently heard that prior investments in digital transformation allowed them to adapt more quickly to the crisis, becoming more digitally resilient. Going forward, accelerating their ability to create a reliable hybrid work environment, make digital commerce a core capability, and effectively apply automation across the enterprise will be priorities. In this next normal, the reliance on data intensive applications and the need to accommodate data gravity make data center uptime around the world critical for virtually any enterprise. Their own ability to develop and deliver new digitally augmented products and services requires access to secure, neutral meeting places where their data and users as well as critical networks and a growing range of clouds are in close proximity.”

– Rick Villars, Group Research Vice President, Worldwide Research, IDC

Methodology
Uptime metrics are based on a comprehensive evaluation of data center suites owned and operated by Digital Realty worldwide, including facilities operated by Interxion: A Digital Realty Company, using standard industry methodology. Total operational minutes were prorated per year for each data center suite, beginning on the commissioning date, from the beginning of 2007 through 2020.

Supporting Resources:

Explore global deployment opportunities on PlatformDIGITAL®
Visit the Data Gravity Insights Hub to learn more about data gravity and see growth forecasts in the Data Gravity Index DGx™

About Digital Realty
Digital Realty supports the world’s leading enterprises and service providers by delivering the full spectrum of data center, colocation and interconnection solutions. PlatformDIGITAL®, the company’s global data center platform, provides customers a trusted foundation and proven Pervasive Datacenter Architecture (PDx™) solution methodology for scaling digital business and efficiently managing data gravity challenges. Digital Realty’s global data center footprint gives customers access to the connected communities that matter to them with more than 280 facilities in 47 metros across 24 countries on six continents. To learn more about Digital Realty, please visit digitalrealty.com or follow us on LinkedIn and Twitter.

Media & Industry Analyst Relations
Marc Musgrove
Digital Realty
+1 (415) 508-2812
mmusgrove@digitalrealty.com

Investor Relations
John Stewart / Jim Huseby
Digital Realty
+1 (415) 738-6500
investorrelations@digitalrealty.com

Safe Harbor Statement
This press release contains forward-looking statements which are based on current expectations, forecasts and assumptions that involve risks and uncertainties that could cause actual outcomes and results to differ materially, including statements related to “five nines,” our operations, our sustainability programs and goals, PlatformDIGITAL, data gravity and demand. For a list and description of such risks and uncertainties, see the reports and other filings by the company with the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission. The company disclaims any intention or obligation to update or revise any forward-looking statements, whether as a result of new information, future events or otherwise.