3 Ways High-Performance Data Centers Mitigate Risk

In today’s digital world, a business’ data is among its most valuable assets. Threats against that data are threats against the business itself, and leading data center providers take these threats seriously. As Adam Fletcher, CISO of Blackstone, once said: “Cybersecurity isn’t about avoiding risk, it’s about managing it intelligently. The future belongs to leaders who make cyber resilience a competitive advantage.”[1]

The 2025 Annual Outage Analysis from Uptime Institute found that data center outages decreased for the fourth consecutive year. However, this doesn’t mean that threats against data centers have dissipated. Indeed, the report notes that data center operators have improved availability despite “mounting external risks that are largely beyond their control—including power grid constraints, extreme weather, network provider failures and third-party software issues.”[2]

The ability to address these threats is part of what separates a high-performance data center (HPDC) from on-premises and commodity colocation facilities. HPDC providers are constantly considering the risks facing customers, be they data security, compliance or availability.

1.    Protecting against unauthorized access

High-performance data center operators prioritize physical security for good reason: If the wrong person accesses your hardware inside a data center, you can consider that hardware breached, along with the entire environment in which it was deployed.

HPDCs help customers balance physical security against their desire for control and privacy. They can deploy inside their own private cage, with the same level of control they’d get on-premises. At the same time, the colocation provider protects that cage against unauthorized access.

Inside an HPDC, access to hardware is strictly controlled using defense-in-depth, multilayered security techniques, including:

• A 24/7 staffed desk where visitors are required to sign in and verify their identity
• Mantraps that control ingress with compartmentalized entry points
• Multi-factor authentication with biometric readers at the entrances to the colocation floor and customer cages

Also, CCTV cameras enable continuous monitoring throughout the facility. Even if a visitor is granted access, security still tracks their movements to ensure they’re only entering areas they were approved to enter.

Preventing unauthorized access to data centers requires a human touch. Even in our high-tech world, old-school social engineering—someone talking their way past security by claiming to be someone or something they’re not—often presents the biggest threats. That’s why the extra training provided to security professionals inside an HPDC is so essential.

At Equinix, our data center professionals represent our first line of defense, so we’re diligent about ensuring they understand their role and that they’re empowered to fulfill it. We apply rigorous physical and operational controls and standards across our global operations to give our customers the same level of protection no matter where they deploy. Learn more about our multilayered approach to physical security in data centers.

By choosing to deploy your invaluable infrastructure and data assets inside an HPDC, your ability to effectively manage risk improves immediately. With attestation to the required physical and operational controls, you can check these items off your critical security controls checklist.

2.    Meeting diverse compliance requirements

Businesses recognize that it’s not enough to have secure, high-performance data centers in only one location. Data sovereignty and privacy regulations look very different in different parts of the world, and an organization that’s expanding globally will face unfamiliar requirements. Failure to comply could be costly, both in terms of direct penalization and damage to reputation.

With the global advancement of AI and proliferation of AI-enabled workloads, deploying private, localized, high-performance infrastructure where you need it while also complying with data sovereignty requirements can be a challenge.

Working with a global high-performance data center provider can help. If the provider has an established presence in a particular jurisdiction, then they’re already familiar with the regulations that apply there. In fact, they should be able to provide local certifications to demonstrate that familiarity.

HPDCs also offer digital infrastructure services that can help manage compliance requirements. For instance, Equinix Network Edge offers virtual network devices from leading vendors. Customers can quickly deploy these devices to enable better control over their network traffic. If they need to implement guardrails to ensure certain datasets remain within certain borders, as required by data sovereignty regulations, Network Edge devices make it easy to do that.

HPDC providers like Equinix recognize that visibility is the first step toward compliance. That’s why we offer customers observability tools and access to granular data from sensors inside our data centers. This helps them see for themselves whether they’re meeting their compliance requirements.

With an AI-ready Equinix data center, companies can benefit from AI advancements and avoid sacrificing progress for security and compliance. Explore our Certification, Standards and Compliance page for more info.

3.    Ensuring data center reliability

Many businesses have built their entire operations around their digital infrastructure, and they need that infrastructure to simply work, no questions asked. If they experience an outage, they risk missed opportunities, reputational damage and poor user experience.

When enterprises design reference architectures for critical workloads, reliability is often secondary to functionality or convenience. This is apparent when a single vendor or solution failing can cause significant internet outages globally. Designing for resiliency across solutions and avoiding vendor lock-in are more important than ever to mitigate these risks, especially for critical workload components.

HPDCs help support customers’ disaster recovery and business continuity plans. If an enterprise uses the cloud as their primary IT environment, they can deploy a secondary disaster recovery site inside an Equinix data center, and vice versa. We work with customers to help them develop strategies to ensure business continuity despite the evolving threats they face. This includes our ability to help design hybrid multicloud deployments.

Redundancy is a key factor in ensuring data center availability, and HPDCs have the highest levels of redundancy baked into them by design.

Power redundancy

To ensure the consistent energy supply to keep vital IT equipment running, HPDCs are built using an N+1 power architecture. This means that operators deploy enough uninterruptible power supply (UPS) units to run the data center at full load, plus at least one redundant unit. UPS units are placed on different power distribution paths to help prevent them from failing simultaneously.

At Equinix, we offer power redundancy of N+1 or greater across our data center portfolio. We also provide backup power generators capable of running the entire data center during a local utility failure. It’s one reason we’re able to offer uptime of greater than 99.9999%.

Network redundancy

HPDCs are networking hubs that allow customers to link their own distributed infrastructure or connect with ecosystem partners via redundant connections. Even if they fall victim to the dreaded “fiber-seeking backhoe,” they’re not fully dependent on any one physical connection. Their network traffic can reach its destination using virtual connections instead.

Inside an Equinix data center, customers can choose both physical and virtual connections to support different use cases. Equinix Fabric®, our virtual networking solution, offers port redundancy. Customers can acquire multiple Equinix Fabric ports, designating them as either primary or secondary ports. These ports are installed on different edge nodes, so primary and secondary ports aren’t built on the same physical infrastructure.

Learn what you can achieve with a new kind of data center

The benefits of deploying in a high-performance data center aren’t limited to security, compliance and availability. Whether you’re looking to get AI-ready, expand globally, future-proof your operations, or make progress toward sustainability goals, an HPDC can help.

Learn more about what separates HPDCs from traditional data centers: Get your copy of High-Performance Data Centers for Dummies today.

[1] Jay Cameron, The top 20 expert quotes from the Cyber Risk Virtual Summit, Diligent, February 28, 2025.

[2] Douglas Donnellan, Andy Lawrence and Rose Weinschenk, Annual Outage Analysis 2025, Uptime Institute, May 2025.