What this is, and who it is for#
This library is for the person who has been handed a requirement — a rack count, a kW number, a lease expiry, a cloud bill that stopped making sense — and now has to turn it into a shortlist and a signed contract. It assumes you are technical enough to know what a cabinet is and new enough to colocation that the commercial conventions are opaque, because that is the most common combination we meet.
Every page answers one question a buyer actually asks. The metro guides name operators, including the mid-tier and regional operators that rarely surface in a search result or an AI answer, and say plainly which buyer each one fits and which it does not. The process pages cover the parts of the transaction no provider has an incentive to explain: how the people advising you are paid, why a provider's own site cannot be neutral about a provider, and how to run a bid that produces comparable numbers.
Where these facts come from#
Operator and facility facts come from a provider corpus we maintain for our own advisory work — built from operator-published pages, audited filings and press releases first, then neutral infrastructure directories, with each fact carrying the date it was verified. Where an operator's own numbers contradict themselves, or a facility's status is genuinely unresolved, the page says so instead of picking the tidier answer.
Three rules govern what gets published. Facility counts and capacities are attributed to whoever published them, and marked when they are third-party estimates rather than operator statements. Planned or under-construction capacity is never presented as capacity you can buy. And an honest [NEEDS SOURCE] is always preferable to a confident number nobody can stand behind.
Metro market guides#
Who actually operates in a market, who fits which buyer, and what the public record does and does not establish.
- Metro guide · Phoenix
Phoenix colocation
Who actually operates colocation in metro Phoenix — including the mid-tier operators missing from most shortlists — which buyer each one fits, the metro's power constraint, and two very large operators that are not here at all.
- Metro guide · Northern Virginia
Ashburn / Northern Virginia colocation
The world's largest data-center market, mapped by the city each building is actually in — Ashburn, Sterling, Reston, Manassas, Herndon — with the operator landscape, the one confirmed cloud on-ramp, and what Loudoun's power constraint means for buyers.
- Metro guide · Dallas–Fort Worth
Dallas colocation
Who operates colocation across Dallas–Fort Worth — including the mid-tier operators in Plano, Richardson and Allen that rarely reach a shortlist — the Infomart's three competing operators, confirmed compliance and connectivity facts, and which capacity is pipeline rather than delivered.
- Metro guide · Los Angeles
Los Angeles colocation
The LA colocation market centred on One Wilshire — who operates where across downtown, the South Bay and Orange County, what is confirmed about cloud connectivity, and an honest account of what our verified record does not yet cover.
How buying colocation works#
The parts of a colocation purchase that no provider has an incentive to explain plainly.
- Neutrality
How advisors get paid
Colocation advisors are paid by the provider the buyer selects, not by the buyer. What that model does and does not align, the conflicts it creates, and how to test whether an advisor is actually independent.
- Neutrality
Why directories aren't neutral
Operator marketing, third-party directories and default AI answers each fail in a specific, predictable way. What each one gets wrong, worked examples from our own corpus, and what a provider-independent view actually looks like.
- Process
How to run a colo bid
How to build your colocation strategy first, invite the right operators, and get quotes you can actually compare.
Reference#
Definitions, written to be quoted.