Executive Summary
Hyperscaler colocation tenants demand strict compliance reporting, real-time infrastructure monitoring, and raw telemetry data access. A robust DCIM solution delivers vendor-agnostic data collection, historical trend tracking, and a secure API for tenant transparency — helping colocation providers meet contractual obligations and retain hyperscaler business.
Challenges in Tenant Transparency
Providing colocation for hyperscalers is an attractive business model, but hyperscalers have complex and rigid requirements that can be challenging and time-consuming to support.
These challenges include strict compliance with rules on power distribution and environmental conditions, often specifying the number and length of violations for a given period. Violations of compliance with these requirements can be the basis of contractual agreements that allow them to break their service contract, or the colocation provider can incur fees associated with violating compliance.
Additionally, to enforce these requirements they require a great deal of data transparency, giving them access to raw telemetry data for the data center power and environmental gear. This can include the minute-by-minute data for PDUs, UPSs, STS, RPPs, etc. as well as the raw data for temperature and humidity sensors.
Power distribution and environmental data must be complete enough to meet your hyperscaler compliance needs – this includes available data points as well as tracking all values as historical trends. In addition, your DCIM must be able to collect data from all vendors in your infrastructure equally, regardless of manufacturer. Some manufacturer-provided monitoring solutions do not equally represent your hardware, favoring reporting for their own brand.
What’s the End Game?
The goal is for the hyperscaler to have the ability to evaluate whether the infrastructure being provided meets their redundancy requirements to ensure their equipment up-time. Is the power gear that is providing data to their colocation space truly redundant and able to handle a failure event – or have you added load to your gear, inadvertently creating a condition where an equipment failure would not result in the expected behavior, such as a redundant partner being able to handle the shift in load?
They also seek visibility into sensors to ensure the environmental conditions in the data hall are met, as they can affect the lifecycle and reliability of their gear and the infrastructure gear you provide. (Read our blog on “Getting the Most Reliability from Your Assets with Remote Monitoring” here.)
Solution: The Right DCIM Can Help
A quality DCIM should address these challenges, simplifying the support of hyperscaler colocation in your data center. This includes the ability to monitor your infrastructure in real-time with a level of detail compliant with hyperscaler contracts and the ability to share that data securely to meet their data transparency requirements.
In addition, look for a flexible API that easily integrates with other solutions like CRMs or infrastructure tools like NetSuite® and ServiceNow™. This same API should be robust enough to meet the data transparency needs of your colocation tenants. The Modius® OpenData® API does just this, providing a method to securely publish raw telemetry points from your devices directly through the API, including an easy on-screen method of selecting which data points are published via the API for each tenant.
Build a Hyperscaler-Ready Offering with Modius OpenData
If you are looking to build a winning offering to hyperscalers – from vendor-agnostic data collection to historical trending of all data points on a device, to full access to raw telemetry data via an API for data transparency, consider Modius OpenData.
Read the Stack Success story here to see how Modius can help with the challenges of hosting a hyperscaler.
Frequently Asked Questions
Q: What is tenant transparency in colocation data centers?
Answer: Tenant transparency refers to providing colocation tenants — especially hyperscalers — with direct access to real-time and historical infrastructure data. This includes raw telemetry from power distribution equipment, environmental sensors, and compliance reporting. Modius OpenData delivers this through a secure API with granular control over which data points each tenant can access.
Q: What compliance requirements do hyperscaler tenants typically have?
Answer: Hyperscalers typically specify strict rules on power distribution and environmental conditions, including the number and duration of permitted violations per period. Non-compliance can trigger financial penalties or allow the tenant to exit the contract. A DCIM like Modius OpenData tracks these metrics in real time and maintains historical records for compliance auditing.
Q: Why is vendor-agnostic data collection important for hyperscaler colocation?
Answer: Hyperscalers require complete and unbiased visibility across all infrastructure equipment. Some manufacturer-provided monitoring solutions favor their own brand in reporting. A vendor-agnostic DCIM like Modius OpenData collects and normalizes data from all manufacturers equally, ensuring the hyperscaler receives a complete and accurate infrastructure picture.
Q: How does a DCIM API support hyperscaler data transparency?
Answer: A robust DCIM API publishes raw telemetry data securely to tenants and integrates with their existing tools such as CRMs and infrastructure platforms. The Modius OpenData API allows colocation providers to select exactly which data points are exposed per tenant, providing granular security while meeting transparency demands.
Q: How does Modius OpenData compare to other DCIM solutions for hyperscaler support?
Answer: Unlike some DCIM platforms that offer limited API functionality or require third-party integrations for tenant data sharing, Modius OpenData provides a built-in secure API with per-tenant data point selection, vendor-agnostic collection, and historical trend tracking — all critical for meeting hyperscaler contractual requirements out of the box.
Take the Next Step
If you are looking for a next-generation DCIM solution that can help you better understand your data center’s status and efficiencies, consider Modius OpenData.
OpenData is a ready-to-deploy DCIM featuring an enterprise-class architecture that scales incredibly well. In addition, OpenData gives you real-time, normalized, actionable data accessible through a single sign-on and a single pane of glass.
We are passionate about helping clients run more profitable data centers and providing operators with the best possible view into a managed facility’s data. We have been delivering DCIM solutions since 2007. We are based in San Francisco and are proudly a Veteran Owned Small Business (VOSB Certified). You can reach us at sales@modius.com or (888) 323.0066.