Digital Realty provides global data center, colocation, and interconnection solutions for enterprises and service providers through its PlatformDIGITAL platform.
Digital Realty provides global data center, colocation, and interconnection solutions for enterprises and service providers through its PlatformDIGITAL platform.
Digital Realty (NYSE: DLR) is one of the world’s largest full-service data center providers, offering a comprehensive suite of colocation, interconnection, and cloud-neutral solutions. Founded in 2004 and headquartered in Austin, Texas, the company has grown into a global powerhouse through strategic acquisitions—most notably the merger with Interxion and the acquisition of Teraco—expanding its reach across more than 50 metros in over 25 countries.
The company serves a diverse clientele, ranging from the world’s largest hyperscale cloud providers and social media platforms to global financial services, manufacturing, and healthcare enterprises. Digital Realty’s core value proposition lies in its ability to solve the complex infrastructure challenges of the digital economy. By providing the physical foundation where data lives and exchange occurs, they enable businesses to scale their digital operations globally.
Their service portfolio is structured around three main pillars:
Data Center Solutions: Providing everything from single-rack colocation to massive, dedicated wholesale data centers.
Interconnection: Facilitating secure, low-latency connections between customers, partners, and service providers via physical cross-connects and virtual fabric.
Managed Services & Support: Offering expert guidance on infrastructure design, deployment, and operational management.
With a market presence that spans North America, Europe, Latin America, Africa, and Asia-Pacific, Digital Realty acts as a central nervous system for global internet traffic and corporate data exchange.
Company Differentiation
Digital Realty distinguishes itself through a "customer-first" operational philosophy that balances the scale of a global REIT with the agility of a service provider. Their culture is deeply rooted in the concept of the "Connected Community," where the value of the data center is defined not just by power and cooling, but by the density of the ecosystem living within its walls.
What sets them apart is their commitment to open interconnection. Unlike some competitors that maintain proprietary barriers, Digital Realty champions an open-access model, allowing customers to connect freely across a global fabric. Their business model is uniquely structured to support the entire enterprise lifecycle—from a single cabinet for a startup to a multi-megawatt custom build for a hyperscaler—all under one corporate umbrella. This eliminates the "vendor sprawl" that often occurs as companies scale. Furthermore, their industry-leading focus on sustainability, including a commitment to carbon reduction and 100% renewable energy coverage for their US and European portfolios, aligns their corporate values with the ESG goals of modern global enterprises.
Digital Realty offers a spectrum of solutions tailored to different scales:
Colocation: Cabinet-level deployments in shared data halls, ideal for smaller footprints or distributed edge nodes.
Scale (Wholesale): Large-capacity private suites or dedicated data centers for massive deployments (1MW+). Designed for hyperscalers and large enterprises.
Interconnection: Includes physical cross-connects, Metro Connect (linking sites in the same city), and ServiceFabric™ (software-defined global fabric).
Data Hub: Pre-configured footprints designed specifically for data-intensive workloads like AI and Big Data analytics.
Managed Services: While primarily a landlord, they offer specialized "Remote Hands" and structured cabling services to assist with physical tasks.
Product Differentiation
The cornerstone of Digital Realty’s product strategy is PlatformDIGITAL®, a global data center platform designed to enable the "Data Fabric" for modern enterprises. While many providers offer simple colocation, Digital Realty provides a standardized architecture that addresses "Data Gravity"—the phenomenon where large datasets attract applications and services, making them difficult to move.
Key product differentiators include:
- ServiceFabric™: An orchestrated interconnection and software-defined networking solution that allows customers to manage their global connections through a single interface, integrating private infrastructure with public clouds like AWS, Azure, and Google Cloud.
- Pervasive Data Center Architecture (PDx): A proprietary methodology that helps enterprises decentralize their IT infrastructure and deploy hubs closer to users and data sources.
- Hybrid IT Enablement: Their facilities are unique in their ability to house both high-density liquid cooling for AI/HPC workloads and traditional colocation within the same campus.
- Global Footprint Consistency: They offer a "one-pane-of-glass" management experience across 300+ facilities globally, ensuring that a deployment in Singapore feels and operates the same as one in Ashburn or Paris. This technical consistency reduces operational overhead for global IT teams.
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Digital Realty Software Details
Digital Realty: Global Colocation & Data Center Solutions
