A conversation about a colocation provider that starts with a cabinet photo — “walk the cage,” “see the cold aisle,” “the meet-me room is on the tour” — usually fails at the first unowned kilowatt or cross-connect, not at the first hallway. A cabinet photo is a facility clip. It is not a colocation provider decision. If you do not write how much power you can actually use, which carriers and clouds you must reach, what remote hands will do after hours, and how you leave, the next familiar data-center walk-through still controls the shortlist.
This page is the first colocation advisor brief. It is not a data-center tour, not a logo grid of facilities, and not a ranked list of colocation providers. It is the set of questions that keep a cabinet photo from being treated as the decision.
Why a cabinet photo is not the decision
A tour proves that a building exists — raised floor, cameras, a generator in the background. It does not prove usable power, interconnection, or an exit you can execute. Two cages can look identical in a photograph and still differ on density, A/B feeds, remote-hands hours, and who pulls a cross-connect when you leave. Naming another facility does not create a decision. It creates another slide unless you write the load, the paths, the hands, and the notice dates.
A Supplier Matrix or Hub catalog view has the same limit. It is a screen. It can show that colocation-shaped offerings exist among other categories — colocation, cloud, internet. It cannot name your kilowatt ceiling, your interconnection list, your change window, or the information that must stay out of an uncontrolled first form. Treat the catalog as an outbound screen, not as the colocation provider shortlist. The Data Partner is the advisor on that frame, not the landlord and not the remote-hands desk.
The usual shortcut also collapses unlike work. Someone asks for “a colo,” receives a cloud-migration slide, and treats a landing zone as a cabinet — or receives a circuit quote and treats last-mile access as the facility decision. Placement, interconnection, and the path into the building are related. They are not interchangeable. The live cloud migration page is the companion when the real question is still whether the work should leave the cabinet. The live cloud migration readiness page is the companion when workloads and ownership are still unwritten. This page stays on the colocation provider decision: power, interconnection, remote hands, and exit.
What belongs on the provider brief
Before anyone treats a cabinet photo as a colocation provider decision, fill these rows:
- Decision identity: replace a site, add a second facility, shrink a footprint, or stay and re-contract — plus who approves technical, commercial, and facilities choices.
- Power: contracted kilowatts versus usable density, A/B feeds, PDU and remote-cycle rights, cooling envelope, and what happens when you exceed the draw. A photo of a cabinet does not carry those numbers.
- Interconnection: carriers already in the building, cross-connect lead times and monthly cost, meet-me or cloud on-ramps you actually need, and which paths share a riser or a provider. A tour of the meet-me room is not that list.
- Remote hands: hours, response classes, what they will and will not touch, who authorizes a power cycle or a swap, and what evidence you receive after the work. “We have remote hands” is not an operating instruction.
- Access and operations: badge rules, escorted access, after-hours entry, who can ship and receive, and what remains the customer’s job on a normal day and a degraded day.
- Path into the building: which circuits terminate here, what the internet and private paths must deliver, and what happens if the primary circuit or the building handoff fails. The business internet quote-readiness checklist is the companion when that path is part of the same buy. The redundancy and failover requirements page is the companion when two circuits are being treated as the facility design.
- Exit: notice, de-install, who pulls cross-connects, how gear leaves, data-bearing media, and what you still pay after the cage is empty. A welcome tour does not write the leave.
- Comparison format: included, optional, exception, assumption, or customer responsibility — the same columns for every colocation provider, not a per-cabinet number against unlike power and unlike interconnection.
The network modernization roadmap is the companion when the cabinet is one row in a wider path, identity, and site plan. The office relocation business internet plan is the companion when a move date is being used as a substitute for the facility brief. The dedicated access versus broadband page is the companion when the circuit type into the building is still unwritten.
Questions that belong in the first meeting
Ask the incumbent or a challenger to show, not describe:
- The contracted kilowatts, the usable density, and what happens when the draw exceeds the envelope — not a photograph of the aisle.
- Which carriers and cloud on-ramps are actually available to your cage, the cross-connect lead time, and which paths share a failure domain.
- A remote-hands ticket from intake to evidence: who authorized it, what they touched, and how long it took after hours.
- How you leave: notice, de-install, cross-connect removal, and what you still owe after the cabinet is empty.
- How they keep the same columns so a facility tour is not compared to a service, and so a per-cabinet number is not compared to unlike power.
If those answers are a cabinet photo and a promised monthly cage total, you do not have a colocation provider decision. You have a tour.
What this page is not
This is not a provider ranking, not a data-center brochure, and not a claim that The Data Partner already relocated anyone’s cabinets after a hallway walk. It is not a cloud-migration plan and not a circuit quote. Skip incentive talk, skip cabinet photos as a substitute for power and interconnection, and skip any suggestion that a facility tour replaces a shared brief. Write the rows. Then request comparable replies. If you want a second set of eyes on the brief, start with a conversation.