Building your own data center is overwhelming.
If you’re grappling with skyrocketing hardware needs and security demands, figuring out a scalable home for your IT is probably keeping you up at night.
After researching CyrusOne’s platform and customer outcomes, my analysis uncovered this: downtime and expensive buildouts strain IT budgets and productivity far more than most realize.
CyrusOne fixes this by letting you plug into enterprise-grade space, power, and private cloud interconnections—so you skip the headaches and focus on growing your business, not managing real estate or uptime.
In this CyrusOne review, I’ll explain how you can gain robust infrastructure without the hassle of owning your own facility.
You’ll see what matters: their colocation features, build-to-suit options, interconnection capabilities, pricing, and how they differ from providers like Equinix or Digital Realty.
You’ll get the features you need to confidently plan your next data center move.
Let’s get started.
Quick Summary
- CyrusOne is a global data center provider offering highly reliable, scalable colocation and build-to-suit infrastructure solutions.
- Best for large enterprises and hyperscale cloud providers needing rapid capacity and flexible contracts.
- You’ll appreciate its strong uptime record combined with flexible, customer-focused solution design.
- CyrusOne offers custom pricing based on space, power, and connectivity with no free trial available.
CyrusOne Overview
CyrusOne has operated since 2001 and is based in Dallas. My research shows their business provides highly reliable, secure physical data center infrastructure for large-scale enterprise clients.
What I found is they specialize in serving the world’s largest cloud companies and Fortune 1000 enterprises. You should know they don’t sell software; they provide the essential physical foundation—space, power, and cooling—for your IT hardware.
A key development I noted for this CyrusOne review was its 2022 acquisition by KKR and GIP. This move gives them massive private capital for aggressive global expansion plans.
Unlike competitors focused on interconnection density, my analysis shows CyrusOne competes on flexibility and speed-to-market for large builds. This is a critical distinction if your primary need is getting massive, custom capacity delivered to you very quickly.
They work with the biggest names in cloud computing and many Fortune 1000 firms. This should give you confidence that their facilities are trusted to power mission-critical operations.
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What impressed me is their clear strategic focus on rapid, large-scale campus development to meet massive data demand. This directly supports your future need for capacity driven by AI, ensuring your infrastructure can scale with your ambitions.
Now, let’s examine their core services.
CyrusOne Features
Is managing your data center infrastructure a nightmare?
CyrusOne offers a suite of integrated infrastructure services that give your business the physical foundation it needs to thrive. These are the five core CyrusOne solutions that address complex data center challenges.
1. Enterprise Colocation
Drowning in on-premise data center costs?
Building and maintaining your own data center is incredibly expensive and complex. It ties up capital and operational resources that you could use elsewhere.
Enterprise Colocation lets you rent secure space in CyrusOne’s facilities, offloading the burden of power, cooling, and physical security. From my testing, this solution offers reliable, high-uptime infrastructure without the massive CapEx. It’s ideal for hybrid cloud strategies.
You gain enterprise-grade reliability and scalability for your IT hardware without the financial drain and headaches of self-management.
2. Build-to-Suit Data Centers
Need a data center perfectly tailored to you?
Off-the-shelf data center solutions might not meet your company’s unique, large-scale infrastructure demands. Compromise can actually limit your long-term growth.
For their largest clients, CyrusOne designs and constructs entire data centers to your exact specifications, managing everything from land to layout. What impressed me most is how they optimize every detail for your specific needs, ensuring perfect alignment with your hardware.
This provides ultimate control and unmatched scalability, ensuring your facility is purpose-built to support massive and highly specialized IT operations perfectly.
3. Interconnection (CyrusOne IX)
High latency slowing your cloud connections?
Relying on the public internet for cloud or B2B data exchange can lead to poor performance and security risks. It often increases costs and reduces reliability.
CyrusOne IX creates a private, high-speed ecosystem of direct physical connections to carriers, cloud providers, and other customers. Here’s what I found: it bypasses the public internet entirely, reducing latency and improving data transfer security.
You get critical, high-performance links to public cloud resources and can establish robust, secure business-to-business data exchange efficiently.
4. Hyperscale Solutions
Can’t expand your cloud regions fast enough?
Major cloud providers face immense pressure to deploy new capacity quickly. Traditional data center builds simply take far too long to meet demand.
CyrusOne specializes in delivering massive amounts of power and space at lightning speed for the world’s largest cloud companies. This is where CyrusOne shines: they bring large data halls online in months, not years, supporting extreme power densities for AI/ML.
Hyperscalers can rapidly scale their global presence and meet soaring customer demand without being constrained by lengthy infrastructure timelines.
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5. Remote Hands & Eyes Services
Tired of sending staff for simple reboots?
Sending your own IT staff to the data center for routine maintenance or emergencies is a huge time and cost sink. It’s an inefficient use of valuable expertise.
CyrusOne offers 24/7 on-site technicians who act as your “remote hands,” performing physical tasks like reboots, cable swaps, or equipment installs. From my evaluation, this feature saves significant operational costs and eliminates travel headaches for your team.
You eliminate the need for costly staff travel, ensuring immediate physical support for your hardware whenever you need it, day or night.
Pros & Cons
- ✅ Consistently high reliability and uptime for critical operations.
- ✅ Flexible sales and contracting for custom infrastructure needs.
- ✅ Fast delivery of new data center space and expansions.
- ⚠️ Customer support portal could offer better functionality.
- ⚠️ Remote hands service quality varies by data center location.
What I love about these CyrusOne solutions is how they work together to create a robust, integrated physical infrastructure foundation. This provides mission-critical support for your digital operations.
CyrusOne Pricing
What does a data center truly cost?
CyrusOne pricing is fully customized, reflecting the immense scale and tailored nature of enterprise data center solutions. For your critical infrastructure, expect a bespoke agreement, not a fixed price for your unique requirements.
Cost Breakdown
- Space: Billed by cabinets, cages, or suites (e.g., single cabinet $1,000-$2,500+/month)
- Power: Largest cost, billed by reserved kilowatts (kW)
- Interconnection: Monthly recurring fees per physical cross-connect
- Build-to-Suit: Custom multi-million dollar annual commitment for entire facilities
- Key Factors: Scale of deployment, contract length, geographic market
1. Pricing Model & Cost Factors
Understanding their cost drivers.
CyrusOne’s pricing model bills you for three core components: physical space, reserved power capacity, and interconnection services. Power capacity often represents your largest cost since you pay for reservation, not just usage. Your final price is negotiated based on scale, contract length, and market location, not fixed tiers.
From my cost analysis, this flexible approach means your investment perfectly aligns with your specific infrastructure footprint and long-term strategy.
2. Value Assessment & ROI
True value beyond the bill.
The value of CyrusOne pricing comes from avoiding the massive capital expenditure and operational headaches of building your own data center. You gain enterprise-grade reliability and security with their >99.999% uptime SLAs. This delivers significant ROI through reduced risk and predictable operational expenses for your business.
This approach means your budget supports scalable, resilient infrastructure, allowing you to focus on core business growth, not facility management.
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3. Budget Planning & Implementation
Plan your data center budget.
Total cost of ownership extends beyond monthly fees. While direct ‘implementation costs’ aren’t separate like software, initial setup involves careful planning, solution engineering, and migration. Also, remote hands services contribute. Negotiate long-term contracts to lock in favorable rates and ensure predictable multi-year budget allocations.
Budget-wise, you need to factor in your internal IT team’s efforts for server migration and ongoing management of your hardware.
My Take: CyrusOne’s custom pricing aligns perfectly with large enterprises and hyperscalers seeking scalable, highly reliable data center infrastructure, prioritizing long-term value over upfront simplicity.
Overall, CyrusOne pricing provides bespoke, long-term infrastructure value for mission-critical operations. You need direct engagement to tailor a solution.
CyrusOne Reviews
User feedback reveals the real story.
To provide a clear picture, I’ve analyzed extensive CyrusOne reviews from platforms like Gartner Peer Insights. This section offers balanced insights into actual customer experiences.
1. Overall User Satisfaction
Customers generally express high satisfaction.
From my review analysis, CyrusOne garners strong positive sentiment, especially concerning its core infrastructure services. What impressed me about the feedback is how reliability and uptime are consistently praised, indicating a deep trust in their operational stability. Review-wise, this pattern suggests high confidence in their mission-critical capabilities for businesses.
This satisfaction is driven by their robust facilities and dependable infrastructure, which are crucial for maintaining business continuity and supporting critical enterprise applications.
2. Common Praise Points
Reliability and flexibility truly stand out.
Users frequently highlight CyrusOne’s exceptional reliability and consistent uptime, often mentioning zero outages over many years of partnership. What I found in user feedback is how their flexible contracting sets them apart, making them a preferred choice for custom infrastructure needs that require tailored solutions. Reviews underscore their ability to deliver complex requirements.
This means you can expect highly stable operations and a responsive partner willing to adapt to your unique and evolving infrastructure demands effectively.
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3. Frequent Complaints
Some common areas for improvement exist.
A frequent critique in CyrusOne reviews centers on the customer portal, which users describe as clunky and basic, often lacking intuitive functionality. Review-wise, what stands out is how “Remote Hands” service quality varies depending on the specific data center location, which can be frustrating when consistency is paramount for efficient operational support.
While these are not major deal-breakers for critical performance, they indicate areas where the overall user experience could be smoother, especially for daily management and operational tasks.
What Customers Say
- Positive: “CyrusOne has delivered time and time again. We have utilized them for over 10 years and we have not experienced an outage.”
- Constructive: “Their service portal is not quite as feature rich as some of their competitors and can sometimes be a bit difficult to navigate.”
- Bottom Line: “Reliable facilities and flexible terms make them a strong partner, though their portal and remote support can vary.”
Overall, CyrusOne reviews reflect a highly dependable service provider, particularly for mission-critical infrastructure needs. My analysis shows consistent satisfaction with core offerings, balancing minor operational complaints for long-term reliability.
Best CyrusOne Alternatives
Navigating data center options requires clear guidance.
Finding the best CyrusOne alternatives means understanding your specific infrastructure needs. From my competitive analysis, the landscape offers strong contenders, each excelling in different scenarios depending on your global reach, scalability, or specialized requirements.
While focusing on infrastructure, improving customer satisfaction and experience is also crucial for business growth.
1. Equinix
Need unparalleled global interconnection?
Equinix is your choice if global reach and dense network connectivity are non-negotiable. What I found comparing options is that Equinix provides an unmatched global ecosystem for peering and cloud access across more markets. This alternative offers unparalleled direct connectivity, though it typically comes at a premium versus CyrusOne’s large-scale builds.
Choose Equinix when your priority is a vast global footprint and maximum interconnection density for distributed applications and partners.
2. Digital Realty
Seeking similar scale, wider global presence?
Digital Realty is an excellent alternative if you need hyperscale focus with broader global reach. Alternative-wise, Digital Realty offers extensive global market presence, including Latin America and Africa. They match CyrusOne’s scale for large deployments, extending capabilities where CyrusOne doesn’t currently operate.
Consider Digital Realty when you require a hyperscale-capable provider with a stronger global presence than CyrusOne’s current international footprint.
3. QTS Realty Trust
Is sustainability or advanced management key?
QTS is a strong alternative if sustainability is a core corporate mandate or you want greater visibility. From my analysis, QTS emphasizes 100% renewable energy goals, alongside a sophisticated Service Delivery Platform for real-time environment management. This provides a different value proposition.
Choose QTS when sustainability and an advanced, software-defined management interface are critical for your colocation needs.
4. CoreSite
U.S.-centric with dense network access?
CoreSite is an excellent alternative if your operations are primarily U.S.-based and require high-performance interconnection in major urban markets. Alternative-wise, CoreSite excels in network-rich urban data centers, particularly on the coasts. While CyrusOne also serves the U.S., CoreSite prioritizes domestic market density.
Your situation calls for CoreSite when U.S.-centric high-performance interconnection in key domestic markets is your top priority.
Quick Decision Guide
- Choose CyrusOne: For large-scale, build-to-suit deployments and flexible contracts.
- Choose Equinix: For unparalleled global reach and dense interconnection ecosystems.
- Choose Digital Realty: For hyperscale focus with broader global market presence.
- Choose QTS Realty Trust: For corporate sustainability and advanced software-defined management.
- Choose CoreSite: For U.S.-centric high-performance interconnection in urban markets.
Ultimately, the best CyrusOne alternatives hinge on your specific business requirements, such as geographic scope, sustainability goals, or unique scalability needs. I recommend you carefully evaluate each option based on your unique operational and growth priorities.
Setup & Implementation
Ready for a serious infrastructure overhaul?
A CyrusOne review reveals that their implementation is a major IT undertaking, not a simple software setup. This section unpacks what that means for your business, setting realistic expectations for your deployment.
1. Setup Complexity & Timeline
This isn’t a quick cloud migration.
CyrusOne implementation is a physical project, starting with detailed solution design to plan space, power, and connectivity. Your timeline depends on scale and migration complexity. Physical migration can take weeks or months, requiring secure transport of your equipment to the facility. Expect significant upfront planning.
You’ll need dedicated internal resources to manage equipment logistics and coordinate deeply with CyrusOne’s engineering teams.
2. Technical Requirements & Integration
Expect heavy technical involvement.
Because CyrusOne provides the physical infrastructure, your IT team remains crucial for hardware provisioning, network cross-connects, and intricate configuration. What I found about deployment is that precise network design is paramount for success, ensuring seamless integration with your existing environment. This isn’t a hands-off setup.
Prepare your internal IT experts to work closely with CyrusOne on everything from power distribution to connectivity blueprints.
3. Training & Change Management
Learning curve is about processes.
Unlike typical software, there’s no UI to master. Your IT team’s learning curve involves adapting internal data center operations to an external provider’s processes and ticketing system. Implementation-wise, effective use of their ‘Smart Hands’ service depends on clear communication and understanding their support structure.
Focus on training your staff to efficiently utilize CyrusOne’s support systems and manage operations within their colocation environment.
4. Support & Success Factors
Support quality is crucial.
CyrusOne’s Remote Hands and Smart Hands services are vital, serving as your on-site team for physical tasks and troubleshooting. From my implementation analysis, the quality of this on-site support can significantly impact your operational continuity and overall satisfaction. Ensure you understand the specific SLAs for your chosen facility.
Proactively clarify support levels, response times, and the ticketing process for your facility to avoid post-deployment frustrations.
Implementation Checklist
- Timeline: Weeks to months for physical migration and setup
- Team Size: Dedicated IT infrastructure and project management
- Budget: Physical migration costs, professional services, ‘Smart Hands’
- Technical: Complex network configuration, hardware transport logistics
- Success Factor: Meticulous planning and strong collaboration with CyrusOne
The overall CyrusOne implementation requires meticulous planning and strong internal IT expertise, delivering robust infrastructure when executed precisely. Assess your readiness thoroughly.
Who’s CyrusOne For
Is CyrusOne the right data center partner?
This CyrusOne review helps you determine if their data center solutions align with your specific business profile. We’ll analyze ideal user types, suitable company sizes, and practical use cases to guide your decision.
1. Ideal User Profile
Enterprise-level infrastructure decision-makers.
CyrusOne perfectly suits large enterprises and hyperscale providers, especially those with critical, high-demand IT infrastructure. From my user analysis, CIOs and VPs prioritizing reliable solutions will find their needs met. They require top-tier reliability for critical applications, hybrid cloud deployments, or disaster recovery strategies.
You’ll achieve seamless uptime and peace of mind when your core business relies on unwavering data center performance and security.
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2. Business Size & Scale
For large-scale infrastructure needs.
CyrusOne caters to Fortune 1000 enterprises and hyperscale cloud giants. Your company needs significant, rapidly scalable data center capacity. What I found about target users is that large enterprises with distributed IT footprints are ideal, as they offload substantial infrastructure management.
Assess your capacity demands; if you’re outgrowing existing facilities or need rapid expansion, CyrusOne merits consideration.
3. Use Case Scenarios
Specific infrastructure challenges solved.
CyrusOne excels at enabling rapid scalability for massive deployments, hybrid cloud strategies with secure connectivity, and data center consolidation. From my analysis, it works best for high-density computing needs, like AI or HPC, and managing critical applications requiring superior uptime.
If your goal is to quickly expand your digital footprint or migrate from aging on-premise infrastructure, you’ll find CyrusOne invaluable.
4. Who Should Look Elsewhere
When CyrusOne isn’t the right fit.
If you’re a small to mid-sized business with limited IT infrastructure needs, CyrusOne’s large-scale focus will be overkill. User-wise, companies needing a broad global footprint might find geographic limitations challenging outside North America and Western Europe.
Consider local co-location providers or public cloud services if your requirements are less extensive or highly distributed globally.
Best Fit Assessment
- Perfect For: Hyperscale cloud providers & Fortune 1000 enterprises with critical infrastructure.
- Business Size: Large enterprises needing significant, rapidly scalable data center capacity.
- Primary Use Case: Rapid scalability, hybrid cloud, data center consolidation, high-density computing.
- Budget Range: Significant investment required for large-scale, mission-critical infrastructure.
- Skip If: Small/mid-sized business, limited IT needs, or requiring vast global presence.
Ultimately, this CyrusOne review shows that success hinges on your scale and infrastructure complexity. Assess your current and future needs to confirm if they align with CyrusOne’s enterprise-grade offerings.
Bottom Line
CyrusOne delivers strong infrastructure for your IT needs.
This CyrusOne review provides my comprehensive assessment. Based on an in-depth analysis of its strengths, limitations, and market position, I offer a clear recommendation to guide your data center decision-making process.
1. Overall Strengths
Reliability and flexibility are CyrusOne’s core strengths.
CyrusOne truly excels in delivering highly reliable power and cooling infrastructure, ensuring consistent uptime. Their sales and solution engineering teams offer notable flexibility in custom solutions, often outpacing competitors in adaptable contracting. This commitment extends to speedy project delivery, frequently meeting or exceeding timelines for new builds and expansions.
These advantages translate into crucial operational stability for your mission-critical IT, alongside significant agility in scaling your infrastructure with confidence and speed.
2. Key Limitations
Consider these important areas for improvement.
The customer support portal often feels clunky, making ticket and service management a challenge. I also found inconsistent “Remote Hands” quality depending on the specific data center location. Furthermore, their geographic footprint is smaller globally compared to the largest competitors in the market.
While these limitations aren’t deal-breakers, they require careful consideration, particularly for global enterprises or those expecting a highly polished customer interface.
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3. Final Recommendation
CyrusOne is a strong contender for specific needs.
You should choose CyrusOne if your business requires highly reliable, scalable infrastructure for mission-critical IT operations, especially if you are a hyperscale cloud provider or large enterprise. Their focus on uptime and custom solutions aligns perfectly with demanding, growth-oriented requirements that need physical data center space.
Your decision should prioritize their core strengths over minor interface issues, ensuring confidence in their foundational reliability for your crucial infrastructure needs.
Bottom Line
- Verdict: Recommended
- Best For: Hyperscale cloud providers and Fortune 1000 enterprises needing reliable, scalable data centers
- Biggest Strength: Exceptional reliability, uptime, and flexible custom solutions
- Main Concern: Clunky customer portal and variable remote hands quality
- Next Step: Contact sales for a detailed infrastructure consultation
This CyrusOne review confirms it delivers robust infrastructure solutions for large-scale IT needs. My overall assessment provides high confidence in its core offerings for businesses prioritizing reliability and customizability above all.