I am often asked for recommendations for co-location facilities, and I always respond with "What is important to you in a co-lo?" and I have not gotten the same answer twice.

So, I now put it out there, what are the Top 5 considerations when picking a new co-lo?

If I were to answer, I would say:

5. Remote Hands Services - There is nothing worse than dispatching a Senior Sys Admin to reboot a machine at 2:00am because there is nobody at the co-lo.

4. Growth Potential - Nobody assumes they are going to stay in a 4 rack cage forever. Is it possible to get contiguous space? If not, how far apart are the available spaces? If I take non-contiguous space, are the cross connects free?

3. Available Power - There is nothing worse than having rack space left, but no power to turn anything on.

2. Reliability - What is the site's uptime record? When was the last failure? How many customers did it affect? What is the sites redundancy N+1, N+2, S+S?

1. Location - Location is important for a slew of reasons, disaster zones, ease of travel, local talent pool, etc. You may chose to keep your data close to your office, close to your customer base, or off in the boonies...there is no hard and fast rule for where your data needs to live, it's all customer specific.

Now, keep in mind this is a rather generic list. Some companies may not need Remote Hands because they have dedicated staff for such functions; while other companies may require SAS70 or similar reporting or compliance items. What are your top 5?