The Tool Desk
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What to decide before you contact providers
Colocation lets a business house its IT equipment in a third-party data center rather than operating the facility itself. The buying decision is not just how much floor space to rent: the site must provide the power, cooling, connectivity, security, and operational support your equipment needs, under terms your business can accept.
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Start with a short requirements brief. Separate what must be available on day one from expected growth, and distinguish critical requirements from preferences. This prevents a provider’s available package or marketing language from defining your needs for you. Telstra’s provider-selection checklist and iTechGuides’ colocation buyer guide also emphasize establishing requirements before comparing facilities.
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- Power: Estimate sustained and peak demand, the customer-available power you need, and whether separate A/B feeds or another redundancy arrangement is required.
- Cooling: Specify the density the proposed space must support and ask how cooling capacity is confirmed for that location and configuration.
- Resilience: State your acceptable outage risk and maintenance needs. Identify which components or paths must be redundant and what recovery arrangements your business requires.
- Network: Name the carriers, cloud connections, exchange access, or other endpoints you need. Note whether physically diverse routes are a requirement.
- Location and compliance: Identify data-location restrictions, latency or customer-proximity needs, staff travel considerations, applicable laws, and any facility-specific security or compliance evidence you require.
- Operations: Define access, delivery, after-hours support, remote-hands tasks, and response expectations.
- Timing and growth: State your target go-live date, expected lead times, and the likely space, power, and network additions during the contract.
- Commercial assumptions: Set the proposed contract term and document how you expect to use power, connectivity, support, and expansion options.
Record assumptions rather than disguising unknowns as firm forecasts. If the design or load is still changing, tell providers what remains uncertain and ask them to identify what could change the proposal.
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How to compare facilities fairly
Use the same brief, service scope, contract assumptions, and questions for every candidate. Request answers for the exact building, hall, and proposed service—not simply a provider-wide capability statement. A carrier list, certification, or security claim may not apply to every site or offering.
| Decision area | What to document and verify |
|---|---|
| Location and business fit | Data location, latency and customer proximity, staff travel, local risks, applicable laws, and recovery-site needs. Uptime Institute notes that regional weather, security, property use, and building codes are factors beyond its Tier topology classifications. |
| Space, power, and cooling | Rack footprint, customer-available committed power, density limits, A/B feeds if required, backup arrangements, cooling capacity at the proposed density, maintenance procedures, and expansion capacity. |
| Resilience and evidence | Whether a resilience statement is a design claim or facility certification; what classification and stage it covers; and what site-specific operating and maintenance evidence is available. |
| Network and interconnection | Named carriers, cloud on-ramps and exchange access; route diversity; cross-connect availability, restrictions, lead times, and one-time and recurring charges. |
| Security and compliance | Facility-specific reports or certificates, their scope and exceptions, access and visitor controls, delivery procedures, incident escalation, and customer audit rights. Match evidence to your actual regulatory and contractual requirements. |
| Service and operations | Support availability, remote-hands tasks and response targets, access process, change approvals, delivery handling, escalation, and who operates the facility. |
| Commercial terms | Setup and installation, reserved or metered power, connectivity, cross-connects, remote hands, applicable taxes or fees, escalators, renewal, expansion, SLA remedies, termination, and migration or exit costs. |
| Deployment and growth | Availability for your go-live date, provisioning lead times, adjacent space and power, and the cost and contractual terms for scaling. |
For each response, record whether it is a provider statement, a document you have reviewed, a contractual commitment, or an unresolved item. That distinction makes it easier to spot a proposal that sounds complete but leaves important capacity, timing, or remedy questions unanswered.
How to interpret a data center Tier claim
Uptime Institute describes Tier I through Tier IV as progressive infrastructure classifications, but a higher Tier is not automatically the right or more cost-effective choice for every business function. Its Tier classification page describes Tier I as basic capacity, Tier II as adding redundant capacity components, Tier III as concurrently maintainable, and Tier IV as fault tolerant. Choose according to your workload’s outage tolerance, maintenance needs, and budget—not the label alone.
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For its Tier III classification, Uptime Institute says: “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.” Treat that as a description of the classification, not a promise about every service, customer configuration, or event. Your contract and the site-specific evidence still matter.
A Tier classification addresses infrastructure topology. It does not by itself settle whether the location suits your business, whether sufficient customer power is available in the hall, whether your required carriers are present, or how the operator handles access and incidents. Evaluate those separately.
How to verify power, cooling, and network capacity
Power and cooling at the proposed rack
Ask the provider to state the customer-available power it can commit in the specific hall and cabinet, along with the density limit and how the proposed configuration will be cooled. Clarify how feeds and backup systems are arranged for your service, and which planned maintenance activities could affect it. Do not infer that a building’s total capacity is available to your rack or that a general resilience claim guarantees your requested density.
Check that the proposal separates initial capacity from future capacity. If you expect to grow, ask what can be added in the same location, whether adjacent space and power are available, how long provisioning takes, and what price or pricing formula will apply. A provider’s general statement about expansion is less useful than a written, facility-specific answer.
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Carriers, cloud connections, and routes
Ask for the named carriers and cloud connections physically available in the building, not just a general network-partner list. Confirm whether the paths you depend on are physically diverse, whether there are operator restrictions, and how cross-connects are ordered. Record one-time and recurring charges and the lead time for each connection. A site may meet your space requirements but still miss your go-live date if a necessary cross-connect cannot be provisioned in time.
CoreSite’s buyer checklist and the viabandwidth provider-selection checklist are additional prompts for evaluating interconnection and other facility requirements.
How to assess security, compliance, and operations
Request security and compliance evidence for the precise facility and service under consideration. Check the report or certificate’s scope, period, and exceptions, and whether it addresses the obligations your business actually has. A general company-level statement is not a substitute for evidence that covers the proposed location and relevant service.
Ask how the facility manages entry, visitors, deliveries, and incident escalation. Find out whether customers can review available operating, security, and maintenance evidence, and what audit rights the contract provides. The right evidence depends on your jurisdiction, regulatory obligations, and customer commitments; do not assume one certificate answers every compliance question.
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Clarify who operates the site and who responds after hours. Define which remote-hands tasks are included, how requests are submitted, how response times are measured, and what rates apply to work outside the included scope. Confirm access and delivery procedures, change approvals, and escalation contacts. These operating details affect both service continuity and the amount of staff time and support expense your team should expect.
Independent reader supportYour contribution helps us test, update, and keep practical guides available for everyone.How to compare the full cost, not just the cabinet rate
There is no universal colocation price that can be applied across regions or workloads. Cost depends on country or region, capacity, density, connectivity, service scope, contract term, and currency. Compare written proposals using the same assumptions and show one-time and recurring charges separately. Eaton’s guide to choosing a colocation service provider and the Telstra and viabandwidth checklists can help identify service and commercial items to include.
Build a term-cost worksheet that captures the charges and obligations in each proposal:
- At setup: installation, provisioning, cross-connect installation, and other one-time fees.
- During service: space, reserved or metered power, bandwidth or connectivity, recurring cross-connects, remote hands, and applicable taxes or fees.
- As the contract changes: price escalators, renewal pricing, added capacity, and the charges or formula for expansion.
- If service fails or ends: SLA credits or other remedies, termination terms, migration work, equipment removal, and other exit obligations.
For each candidate, use the same term, utilization assumptions, expected connection needs, support scope, growth scenario, and exit assumptions. Keep uncertain future costs visible rather than treating them as zero. Check whether a quoted rate is fixed, metered, subject to an escalator, or dependent on a future order. A low headline cabinet rate may not represent the cost of the required power, network, support, and contract rights.
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Compare both cost and risk. A proposal with a higher price may provide a capability or contractual protection your business needs; a more expensive facility or higher Tier is not automatically a better fit if the extra capability does not address a business requirement.
How to run the selection process
- Write the one-page requirements brief. Separate day-one needs from forecast growth. Include equipment, footprint, sustained and peak power, redundancy, network endpoints, compliance needs, location constraints, target launch, and budget assumptions.
- Screen by facility. Request a specification sheet and current availability for the exact site and hall. Do not assume a provider-wide certification, carrier list, or security statement applies to that location.
- Send the same questions to each candidate. Ask for written answers and supporting evidence. Label what is a marketing statement, a document, a certification record, or a contractual commitment.
- Tour or audit when justified. Review access and delivery procedures, and ask to see operating, security, and maintenance evidence available to customers.
- Normalize proposals over the full term. Compare one-time and recurring costs using identical assumptions for capacity, utilization, connectivity, support, growth, and exit.
- Review the SLA and contract with technical and procurement stakeholders. Verify covered services, measurement, exclusions, maintenance windows, credits or other remedies, escalation, rights for chronic failures, renewal mechanics, and termination obligations.
- Choose against critical requirements and total risk. Select the proposal that meets the business’s essential needs at an acceptable cost and risk, based on documented capability, operating model, and contract terms.
Questions to include in your colocation RFP
Send every candidate the same questions and request answers tied to the proposed facility and service. Ask providers to identify supporting documents and any assumptions or exclusions.
- What customer-available power can you commit in the specific hall and cabinet, and what is the density limit?
- How are power feeds, backup systems, and cooling arranged for this service? Which planned maintenance activities can affect the customer?
- Is the Tier statement a design assessment or certification? Which exact site and stage does the evidence cover?
- Which named carriers and cloud connections are physically available in this building? Are routes diverse? What are cross-connect lead times, restrictions, and charges?
- What security and compliance evidence is available for this precise facility and service? What are its period, scope, and exceptions?
- Who operates the facility and responds after hours? Which remote-hands tasks are included, how are response times measured, and what are the rates?
- What services does the SLA cover, how are they measured, what is excluded, and which remedies and escalation rights apply?
- What are all setup, power, cross-connect, bandwidth, remote-hands, renewal, expansion, and exit costs over the contract term?
- What capacity can be added at the same location, on what lead time, and at what contractual price or formula?
- What data-location, access, delivery, and disaster-recovery requirements can this site meet?
What to confirm before signing
Make unresolved items explicit in the final review rather than relying on an informal assurance. Technical, procurement, legal, and security stakeholders should confirm that the proposal, evidence, service description, SLA, and contract refer to the same facility and scope.
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- Required power, density, cooling, and network capacity are stated for the specific service and are available by the required launch date.
- Any resilience or Tier claim has been correctly identified as design-stage or certification evidence, with its facility and scope verified.
- Access, security, compliance, support, remote-hands, delivery, and escalation responsibilities are clear.
- The SLA’s measurements, exclusions, maintenance treatment, remedies, and chronic-failure rights are understood.
- Pricing and contract terms cover setup, recurring service, power, connectivity, growth, renewal, termination, and exit.
- The location and facility evidence satisfy the business’s jurisdiction-specific requirements and recovery plans.
Choosing well means selecting the facility and contract that fit the workload—not maximizing a single specification. If two proposals meet the same critical requirements, the normalized term cost, verified operating evidence, expansion terms, and exit obligations give the decision team a more useful basis than a headline rate or a Tier label alone.
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