Choose a colocation operator by comparing the exact facility, capacity, network, operating procedures and contract you would actually buy—not by ranking corporate uptime claims. Start with your workload and outage consequences, send every candidate the same written requirements, verify site-specific evidence, normalize the complete cost, and negotiate remedies that match your risk.
Define the workload before comparing providers
A colocation decision is a fit-and-risk decision. The operator with the strongest general reputation may be unsuitable for your equipment, jurisdiction, density or recovery plan. Write a short requirements brief before requesting proposals so every provider answers the same question.
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Record the equipment and power profile
- List each cabinet, server, storage system, network device and accelerator, including dimensions, weight, heat output and electrical connectors.
- Separate current draw from nameplate maximum and identify startup or transient loads.
- State the required committed kilowatts, expected average use, rack density and the number of feeds or power distribution paths your design needs.
- Identify equipment that cannot tolerate a maintenance transfer, temperature excursion or brief interruption.
Set geography and regulatory boundaries
Name the countries, states or provinces in which equipment and data may reside. Document customer-access rules, jurisdictional exposure, sovereign-cloud or residency requirements, and the physical distance acceptable for a recovery site. Ask each operator to identify the exact building and room included in its proposal; a city-level description is not sufficient.
Quantify outage impact and recovery objectives
Document recovery-time and recovery-point objectives, maximum tolerable downtime, dependencies on telecommunications or cloud services, and the financial or safety consequences of an outage. These requirements determine whether you need a single resilient site, geographically separated facilities, or a separately operated disaster-recovery location.
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Describe growth and deployment timing
State the cabinets, power and connectivity needed at launch, then specify the additional space and power required over your planning horizon. Request written delivery dates, expansion options and pricing for each stage. “Capacity available” without a committed date does not prove that capacity will arrive when you need it.
Send one identical RFP and scorecard to every operator
Use the same questions, definitions and evidence requests for each candidate. Require answers for the proposed site and service, not a corporate portfolio. A facility specification sheet should identify the site, room, usable capacity, service boundaries and assumptions behind every promise.
| Comparison axis | Evidence and questions to request |
|---|---|
| Geography and regulatory fit | Where exactly is the facility? What residency, jurisdiction, access and recovery constraints apply? Is the named site in scope of the proposal? |
| Usable power | How many committed kilowatts are available to this footprint, at what rack density, on which feeds and distribution paths? What expansion capacity and delivery dates are contractually committed? |
| Cooling and equipment fit | What cooling capacity and supported density are available for the proposed equipment? Which operating limits, environmental conditions and customer-side responsibilities apply? |
| Resilience and maintenance | Provide power and cooling topology, planned-maintenance procedures, failure scenarios, historical incident context and evidence that required components can be maintained without disrupting the contracted service. |
| Connectivity | Which carriers, exchanges, cloud on-ramps and physically diverse routes are present at the exact site? Which are on-net? What are cross-connect prices, provisioning times, route-diversity details and latency to required endpoints? |
| Security and compliance | Provide current audit reports or certificates and their scope, physical-access procedures, monitoring, incident communications and evidence for the workload frameworks that apply to you. |
| Operations and support | Who staffs and operates the facility? What are 24/7 access rules, remote-hands scope and rates, escalation contacts, response targets, maintenance notices and operating procedures? |
| Capacity and growth | Can adjacent space and incremental power be delivered on your timeline? What options, lead times and price changes are committed in writing? |
| Total commercial terms | Provide a like-for-like model covering space, committed power, bandwidth, cross-connects, remote hands, IP allocations, setup, overages and escalators. Compare term, renewal, termination, liability, insurance, credits and exit assistance. |
Ask for each answer in writing and label whether it is a contractual commitment, an engineering assumption, a current operating practice or a sales estimate. Keep the response, drawing and contract version together so a later change is visible.
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Verify the exact facility’s power, cooling and resilience
Compare customer-available power, not building capacity
Operators may quote a building’s utility service or a room’s theoretical capacity. You need the power that can be delivered to your cabinets under the proposed configuration. Confirm the committed kilowatts, voltage, phase, receptacles, feed arrangement, maximum density per rack, metering method and any power factor or demand rules.
Ask whether the commitment is reserved for your footprint or merely available if other customers do not consume it. Request the distribution path from utility or generator through switchgear, uninterruptible power systems, power distribution units and your cabinet. Clarify which components are shared, what is concurrently maintainable, and what happens to your load if one component or path fails.
Test the cooling design against your real density
Obtain the supported kilowatts per rack and the environmental operating range for your equipment. High-density compute can exceed the assumptions of a room designed for conventional enterprise racks. Ask whether the facility supports containment, rear-door heat exchangers, liquid cooling or other special arrangements, and identify installation, monitoring and maintenance responsibilities for any such system.
Require a description of what happens during a chiller, computer-room air-handler, pump or control-system failure. Ask how much cooling remains, how alarms are communicated, and what temporary operating restrictions apply. “Cooling available” should be tied to your proposed load, not a generic room specification.
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Examine maintenance and failure procedures
Request the planned-maintenance workflow, notice periods, approval process, emergency-change process and customer communication channels. For each major power and cooling component, ask for the effect of taking it out of service and the expected state of your equipment during that work.
Ask for documented scenarios covering utility loss, generator operation, UPS failure, distribution-path loss, cooling-component failure, fire or water events, and a staffing or control-system error. You are not looking for a promise that nothing will fail; you are checking whether the proposed design and procedures limit the effect on your workload.
Interpret Tier and other certifications precisely
A Tier label is evidence about a defined design or operating characteristic, not a universal uptime guarantee. Uptime Institute distinguishes three certification stages:
| Certification stage | What it evaluates | What to verify |
|---|---|---|
| Design certification | Formal review of the design and intended implementation. | Current award, exact site and design scope, capacity assumptions and validity conditions. |
| Constructed-facility certification | Review of the completed construction and its demonstrated performance. | Whether the built facility matches the certified design and which rooms or systems are included. |
| Operational-sustainability certification | Assessment of operational behaviors, management practices and operational risks. | Current status, operating scope, procedures assessed and any conditions attached to the award. |
Uptime Institute describes Tier III concurrent maintainability this way: “Each and every capacity component and distribution path in a site can be removed on a planned basis for maintenance or replacement without impacting operations.” The same overview states that a Tier III site remains exposed to equipment failure or operator error. Therefore, ask to inspect the current award documentation and verify the exact building, room, capacity and certification stage. Do not write “Tier III certified” in your comparison without those qualifiers.
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Confirm connectivity at the proposed site
Distinguish on-net carriers from remote access
Request a current carrier and exchange list for the exact building. “Available in the market” does not establish that a carrier is physically present in your room or that the operator can order the service under the quoted lead time. Ask which networks are on-net, which require a third-party extension, who owns the last-mile segment and who is responsible for faults.
Check route diversity and cloud interconnection
Obtain a physical explanation of diverse entrances, meet-me rooms, risers and internal paths. Two circuits sold by different brands may share a conduit, carrier hotel or building entry. For cloud connectivity, identify the specific on-ramp, port options, cross-connect handoff and demarcation point. Ask how a failure in each shared segment affects both links.
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Price and measure the connection
Include recurring port or bandwidth charges, installation, cross-connects, carrier demarcation work, one-time fees, overage rules and changes in commit level. Request latency measurements or a defined measurement method to each required endpoint and region; a generic “low latency” statement is not a usable specification.
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Record cross-connect provisioning times and the escalation path for missed dates. If your deployment depends on a carrier or cloud service that is not on-net, model the extra construction, lead time and failure domain before treating the site as equivalent to an on-net alternative.
Assess security, compliance and day-to-day operations
Validate the scope of security evidence
Request current audit reports, certificates, bridge letters where applicable, physical-access rules, visitor procedures, camera and alarm coverage, media handling, escort requirements and incident-notification commitments. Map each control to your own regulatory interpretation; an operator’s certificate does not automatically satisfy every obligation imposed on your organization.
Understand who operates the facility
Identify the legal contracting party, the entity that owns the building, the entity that runs the infrastructure and any reseller or subcontractor. Ask who is accountable for power, cooling, network cross-connects, security incidents and service credits. A proposal can appear comprehensive while dividing responsibility among several companies.
Measure support in operational terms
Document access hours and approval requirements, remote-hands tasks and rates, standard and emergency response targets, escalation contacts, maintenance communications, ticket priorities and change-control procedures. Ask for an anonymized incident or maintenance report that shows how communications work in practice, while recognizing that provider-authored examples are not independent performance measurements.
Normalize the complete cost and contractual risk
Build one model for every candidate using the same term and workload assumptions. Separate recurring charges, one-time charges and usage-dependent charges.
| Cost category | Questions to include |
|---|---|
| Space | What cabinet, cage or suite footprint is reserved, and are adjacent units priced differently? |
| Committed power | What kilowatts are billed, how are they metered, and what happens if actual use exceeds the commit? |
| Connectivity | What do bandwidth, ports, carrier circuits, cloud connections and cross-connects cost at installation and each month? |
| Operations | What are remote-hands rates, minimum increments, after-hours charges, access fees and installation labor costs? |
| Network addressing | Are IP allocations, route announcements, management networks or firewall services separately charged? |
| One-time work | Include setup, deposits, migration assistance, cabling, testing, security screening and decommissioning. |
| Variable and future charges | Model overages, power increases, bandwidth upgrades, annual escalators, renewal pricing and expansion fees. |
A practical comparison is the total expected spend for the initial term: recurring space, power and services plus one-time charges, expected variable use and any committed expansion. If you amortize a one-time fee for analysis, keep it visible as a separate cash payment. Show best-case, expected and high-use scenarios rather than hiding uncertainty in a single average.
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Read what the SLA actually measures
For each service, record the measurement window, start and stop events, exclusions, planned-maintenance treatment, force-majeure language, reporting method, claim deadline and remedy. A facility power SLA, network SLA and remote-hands response SLA may use different definitions and credits.
Compare the size and form of service credits, whether credits are the sole remedy, liability caps, consequential-loss exclusions, insurance requirements and any obligation to prove a breach. A percentage in an SLA is not an independently measured operating record and does not reimburse every business loss caused by an outage. Your recovery design must cover losses that the contract excludes.
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Check term, renewal and exit language
Review minimum commitment, automatic renewal, termination for convenience, termination for repeated failure, relocation rights, removal deadlines, data and media handling, cabling ownership, equipment access during a dispute, and assistance with migration. Ask whether unused power or space remains payable after downsizing and whether an expansion option changes the price schedule.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.Run a structured site visit and evidence review
Do not treat a tour as a substitute for engineering documents. Use it to test whether the written proposal matches the operating environment.
- Before the visit: send the final equipment list, density, feed requirements, access roster and connectivity needs. Request the facility specification sheet, current certifications, single-line diagrams or an equivalent topology explanation, maintenance policy and sample service reports.
- At the security boundary: observe visitor identification, escort controls, loading procedures, mantrap or badge controls, camera coverage and emergency-contact instructions. Ask how access is logged and revoked.
- In the data hall: verify cabinet dimensions, aisle layout, containment, floor loading, temperature and humidity monitoring, cable paths, labeling and the physical separation of power and network routes.
- In support areas: ask to see or review generator, fuel, UPS, switchgear, cooling and fire-protection arrangements. Confirm which components are shared and which are dedicated to your service.
- With operations staff: walk through a planned maintenance event, a component failure, an access emergency and a remote-hands request. Record who makes decisions, who contacts you and what service remains available.
- After the visit: reconcile observations with the proposal and contract. Put discrepancies into the clarification log and require a revised document or binding amendment before selection.
Turn evidence into a defensible decision
Apply pass/fail gates first
Reject a candidate that cannot meet a non-negotiable requirement, such as lawful data location, minimum usable power, required density, a mandatory carrier, a recovery distance or a security control. Do not let a low price or a high weighted score compensate for a failed legal or technical gate.
Weight the remaining criteria for your workload
Assign weights that total 100 percent according to business impact. A latency-sensitive trading platform may weight network paths and power continuity heavily; a regulated archive may weight jurisdiction, access controls and evidence scope; a rapidly expanding compute cluster may weight density and expansion commitments. There is no universal best-provider weighting.
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Test uncertainty and failure scenarios
Recalculate the result if expansion is delayed, a cross-connect is remote rather than on-net, a planned-maintenance exclusion applies, or a second site becomes necessary. Compare the cost and operational consequence of each scenario. A provider that wins only under optimistic assumptions is not the same choice as one that remains acceptable when documented risks are included.
Make the award conditional on final evidence
Before signing, confirm that the proposal, facility sheet, diagrams, certification scope, pricing model, SLA definitions, support procedures and expansion options are consistent. Identify every verbal promise that must become contract language. Keep a list of evidence that must be refreshed at renewal, especially certificates, carrier availability and expansion dates.
Common comparison mistakes and how to correct them
Using a corporate claim for a local decision
Problem: a provider advertises many facilities, but the quoted site lacks the required room, carrier or capacity. Correction: require site-, room- and service-specific documentation and score only what is in scope.
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Problem: a certification stage or design label is used as a substitute for operating evidence and contract remedies. Correction: verify the certification stage, current award and scope, then separately review maintenance, failure procedures, incident history and SLA definitions.
Confusing committed power with usable power
Problem: the quote lists a room or building capacity that cannot be delivered to your racks at the required density. Correction: document cabinet-level kilowatts, feeds, distribution paths, metering and the effect of component failure or maintenance.
Assuming two networks are diverse
Problem: separate carrier names share an entrance, conduit or meet-me room. Correction: request physical route details, demarcations and failure-domain analysis.
Comparing only the monthly rack price
Problem: cross-connects, remote hands, setup, overages, escalators and exit work make the apparently cheaper site more expensive. Correction: use a like-for-like term model with one-time, recurring and variable costs.
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Problem: credits are limited, claims are difficult, or exclusions remove the events that matter most. Correction: read measurement and remedy language line by line and design independent recovery for losses the contract does not cover.
Leaving growth promises informal
Problem: adjacent space or additional power is described as available but has no date or price protection. Correction: put options, lead times, capacity and price changes into the order form or contract.
The right colocation operator is the one whose exact site, engineering, network, operating evidence and commercial remedies fit your documented workload and failure tolerance. A disciplined, identical RFP and a site-specific evidence review make that conclusion auditable instead of dependent on marketing language.
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