The development and design of data centers is based on a number of standards, specifically designed for data centers. The most commonly used standard for developing and designing the data center – is TIA EIA 942 standard-Telecommunications Infrastructure Standard for Data Centers. This standard was adopted by the telecommunications industry association, and gave a major boost for industry development and data center. The standard was starting point for developing a European standard EN 50173-5  and the international standard ISO / IEC 24764, concerning the design issues of SCS in the data center.

TIA/EIA-942 Standard consider the following issues related to the design and organization of data centers:

• The general approach to designing data centers;
• Structure and Architecture of SCS in the data center;
• Requirements for premises and territories, is scheduled to deploy data center;
• Architectural solutions for data centers;
• Approaches to the design of cooling systems, power supply in the data center;
• Building a system of cable channels for data centers;
• Redundancy and reliability levels tier3 data centers.

A new version of the TIA/EIA-942 standard is expected till the end of 2012, which will be rewritten and improved, taking the fact into account that the association was adopted by the telecommunications industry and a new standard for SCS TIA/EIA-568C has gained extensive experience designing and creating Data Centers  based on the use of new technologies and technical solutions.

In addition to standards adopted by the European standard EN 50173-5 “Information Technology – Generic Cabling Systems, the second version of the international standard ISO / IEC 24764  “Information technology – Generic cabling systems for Data Centres, was not been accepted and approved by the working group.

The European standard EN 50173-5  and the international standard ISO / IEC 24764 relate to matters of constructing a structured cabling system in data centers.

• The European standard EN 50173-5 covers the following issues:
• Structures, hierarchy and functional elements of the SCS in the data center ;
• Interfaces in a structured cabling system;
• Requirements for the channel and cable lines in the copper and optical SCA;
• Requirements for the connecting and distribution equipment;
• Requirements for cords and connectors used in data centers.

International standards are developed and based on European standards and includes in addition to issues addressed by the standard EN 50173-5 is the question of redundancy, grounding, marking and identification of passive components, making use of high-density optical cable system. This standard provides specific requirements for minimum and maximum length of the cable system.

Despite the fact that the standards of TIA/EIA-942, EN 50173-5 and ISO / IEC 24764 are pretty much similar, but there are differences in standards.