Choose a colocation provider by matching a specific facility and service to your workload, then verifying its resilience, operations, security, connectivity, capacity, support and contract terms. A Tier label or headline uptime promise is only one piece of evidence—not a universal ranking of operators.
Start with your workload and business requirements
Write down what the facility must do before comparing providers. This prevents a polished tour or broad portfolio claim from distracting from requirements that determine whether a site will work for your organization. Rank the capabilities that matter most to your business, as CoreSite’s provider-selection checklist recommends.
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- Location and risk: Identify the target city or region, user latency needs, access requirements and relevant disaster exposure.
- Power and growth: Estimate current and expected kW, equipment density, cooling needs, and when additional capacity will be required.
- Network dependencies: List carriers, diverse paths, cross-connects, cloud connections and interconnection services the workload needs.
- Security and compliance: Identify the obligations that apply to your organization, service and data; do not assume that a provider’s certifications satisfy them automatically.
- Operations and support: Specify access arrangements, remote-hands tasks, support coverage and escalation expectations.
- Interruption risk and budget: Define the business impact of downtime, acceptable recovery expectations and the commercial limits you need to meet.
Use the same requirements sheet for every candidate. Record whether each item is confirmed, unconfirmed, unavailable or subject to a contract condition, and note the evidence supporting the status.
Compare providers against the same evidence
Once candidates meet baseline requirements, compare them on the dimensions below. These are areas to investigate, not universal scoring weights; rank them according to your workload and risk profile. Telstra’s colocation provider checklist also highlights failover and redundant connectivity as questions to ask.
#1 Best Overall
- Save valuable floor space: 6U wall mount server cabinet Dimensions: 13.78" H x21.65" W x17.72" D.Maximum mounting depth is 14.2"
- Keep critical network equipment secure: glass door and side panels are lockable to prevent unauthorized access. Front door can be installed on either side of the front of the cabinet to satisfy your door swing orientation preference
- Easy equipment configuration: Fully adjustable mounting rails and numbered U positions, with square holes for easy equipment mounting with top and bottom punch-out panels for easy cable access
- Durability: Made of high quality cold rolled steel holds up to 110lb (50kg) (Easy Assembly Required)
- PCI & HIPPA and EIA/ECA-310-E compliant
| Dimension | What to assess | Evidence to request |
|---|---|---|
| Resilience | Power and cooling design, redundancy, maintenance model, failure handling and service availability. | Facility-specific design or certification scope, maintenance procedures, incident history, failover explanations and draft SLA. |
| Security and compliance | Physical controls, access procedures, applicable certifications or reports, exceptions and audit access. | Reports or certificates covering the proposed facility and service, with issuing organization, scope, dates and exceptions. |
| Connectivity and location | Carrier choices, route diversity, cloud on-ramps, interconnection options, latency and provisioning lead times. | Facility-specific carrier and interconnection information, path-diversity details, lead times and costs. |
| Operations and support | Staffing, maintenance and change controls, escalation, remote hands and response coverage. | Support terms, procedures, response commitments, remote-hands scope and relevant customer references. |
| Capacity and growth | Available power and cooling, density limits, expansion capacity and timing. | Confirmation of capacity for the proposed footprint and a documented expansion path. |
| Commercial fit | Recurring and one-time charges, rates, escalators, commitments, flexibility, remedies and exit rights. | Full commercial schedule and draft contract, including exclusions, renewal, expansion and removal terms. |
Verify the exact facility, not just the operator
Ask which building, service and footprint the proposal covers, and identify any work or service delivered by subcontractors. An operator’s portfolio-wide statement does not establish what is available at the site you would use.
For a certification or audit report, check the issuing organization, covered facility and service, scope, dates and exceptions. Validate certification status against the issuer’s current directory where one is available. Uptime Institute describes separate design, constructed-facility and operational-sustainability milestones in its Tier certification overview; a milestone or certification for one site should not be assumed to cover every location or service in the operator’s portfolio.
Understand what a Tier does—and does not—tell you
Uptime Institute’s Tier classifications describe infrastructure capabilities for different business operations; they do not prescribe a specific technology or provide a universal ranking of providers. Its Tier definitions distinguish the levels as follows:
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| Tier | Uptime Institute description | Practical question |
|---|---|---|
| Tier I | Basic capacity. | Does the design meet your minimum needs and interruption tolerance? |
| Tier II | Redundant capacity components. | Which components are redundant, and what happens when one is unavailable? |
| Tier III | Concurrently maintainable. | How are planned maintenance activities completed without impacting operations, and what failures remain outside that protection? |
| Tier IV | Fault tolerant. | What does the facility’s verified scope cover, and what responsibilities remain with your own equipment and operations? |
Uptime Institute says Tier III permits components and distribution paths to be removed for planned maintenance without impacting operations, but the facility remains exposed to equipment failure or operator error. Its Tier IV description addresses fault tolerance to an individual equipment failure or distribution-path interruption. Ask providers to explain how those characteristics apply to the specific service you are buying; do not infer protection beyond the stated scope.
Rank #2
- Save valuable floor space: 12U wall mount server cabinet Dimensions: 24.25" H x21.65" W x17.72" D. MAXIMUM MOUNTING DEPTH is 14.2".
- Keep critical network equipment secure: glass door and side panels are lockable to prevent unauthorized access; Front door can be installed on either side of the front of the cabinet to satisfy your door swing orientation preference
- Easy equipment configuration: Fully adjustable mounting rails and numbered U positions, with square holes for easy equipment mounting with top and bottom punchout panels for easy cable access
- Durability: Made of high quality cold rolled steel holds up to 110lb (50kg) (Easy Assembly Required)
- PCI & HIPPA and EIA/ECA-310-E compliant
Test resilience claims against real scenarios
Ask the operator to walk through failure and maintenance cases, including loss of a utility feed, generator or UPS failure, cooling failure, interruption of a distribution path, fuel replenishment and operator error. For each scenario, ask which components or paths are involved, how the facility responds, what customers will notice and what your own equipment must support.
Request historical availability information, incident communications, root-cause follow-up and corrective actions. Clarify whether the proposed SLA covers the power, cooling, access and other services you expect, how availability is calculated, which exclusions apply, and what notification and response commitments exist. Compare credits or other remedies with the business impact of an outage; contractual remedies are not a substitute for an appropriate continuity plan.
Uptime Institute’s 2016 survey reported that 40% of enterprise respondents were paying more for colocation contracts than initially planned or expected, nearly one-third had experienced an outage at a colocation vendor site, and over 60% said SLA penalties would not adequately offset outage costs. These are findings from that 2016 survey, not current outage rates or a forecast of any particular provider’s performance.
Match security and compliance evidence to your obligations
Start with the obligations that apply to your organization and intended use. Then ask for evidence covering the actual facility and service, including the assessor or issuing organization, report period, exceptions and the process for accessing reports, including under NDA if applicable. A collection of badges alone does not show that your specific facility, service or use case is covered.
Rank #3
- Sturdy:4u server rack is construct from cold rolled steel, with a weight capacity of 110lbs(50kg); Electrostatic powder coat prevents rust and corrosion,quality finish
- Direct use:Open and use, not having to assemble it.Network rack can be placed flat or mounted on the wall,also can be installed vertically under the table
- Design Features:maximum mounting depth of 14 in,cables can be fixed on the side panel;Open frame server rack achieves effortless inspection, replacement and assemble
- Installation:wall mount network rack is easy to install,with instructions or videos for reference;Equipped with multiple accessories, suitable for different needs
- Application:EIA/ECA-310-E Compliant;wall mounted 4u rack fits all 19" racks and cabinets to hold various IT, network, and AV equipment;wall mount rack available in 4U, 6U, and 8U to choose
Establish how physical access works: visitor controls, monitoring, customer access procedures, incident notification and any audit rights. CoreSite lists examples such as HIPAA, PCI DSS, NIST 800-53, ISO 27001, SOC 1 Type 2 and SOC 2 Type 2, and recommends independent assessment. These examples are not interchangeable, and the appropriate evidence depends on the buyer’s obligations.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Map connectivity to the workload
Verify network options at the proposed building rather than relying on an operator-wide carrier list. Ask which carriers are available, whether routes are physically diverse, what cross-connects and cloud on-ramps can be provisioned, which interconnection participants are present, and how long setup or changes normally take. Confirm bandwidth flexibility, one-time and recurring costs, and the process for provisioning or changing service.
Telstra’s checklist specifically asks about carrier choices and redundant connectivity paths. CoreSite’s checklist adds cloud provisioning, on-demand setup, network ecosystem and interconnection lead time. The details matter because a second carrier name does not by itself establish a physically independent route.
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Confirm that the exact footprint has enough available power and cooling for your requested load and density, and ask for a documented expansion path and schedule. Clarify 24×7 support coverage, remote-hands tasks and pricing, response and escalation times, access arrangements and customer responsibilities.
Then reconcile sales representations with the draft contract. Review the scope of service, installation and readiness conditions, recurring and one-time charges, power and bandwidth rates, escalators, minimum term, renewal, expansion rights, SLA calculation and exclusions, remedies, audit or report access, incident notice, termination and equipment or data removal. Treat references as evidence only when they relate to a workload and service profile relevant to yours.
Quick Recap
Use a consistent evidence checklist for provider interviews
- Exact facility and service proposed, including subcontracted elements and facility-specific certification or report scope.
- Availability definition and history, incidents and root causes, maintenance controls, failover design, SLA exclusions and remedies.
- Physical security controls, access procedures, incident response, compliance evidence, assessment scope and dates.
- Carriers, route diversity, cloud connectivity, interconnection choices, provisioning lead times and costs.
- Available and expandable power and cooling, density constraints, location risks and growth schedule.
- Staffing, remote-hands scope, support coverage, escalation and relevant customer references.
- Full commercial schedule and contract, including fees, escalation, commitment, expansion, audit, SLA and exit terms.
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