Overview
Executive Overview
UnitedLayer is a premier provider of enterprise-grade cloud and infrastructure services, specializing in managed private cloud, colocation, and hybrid IT orchestration. Founded in 2001 and headquartered in San Francisco, California, the company has established a significant market presence by operating one of the most interconnected data centers in the region and expanding its footprint globally. UnitedLayer serves a diverse clientele, ranging from mid-market enterprises to Fortune 500 companies, with a particular focus on sectors that demand high levels of security and uptime, such as finance, healthcare, government, and technology.
The company’s core mission is to simplify the complexities of the hybrid cloud journey. They achieve this through a comprehensive suite of services that includes:
- Managed Private Cloud: Dedicated, secure, and high-performance cloud environments tailored to specific workload requirements.
- Colocation Services: Tier 3 data center facilities offering carrier-neutral connectivity and industry-leading power density.
- Hybrid Cloud Integration: Seamlessly connecting on-premises infrastructure with private and public cloud environments.
- Managed Services: Comprehensive support including OS management, database administration, security monitoring, and disaster recovery.
Over its two-decade history, UnitedLayer has evolved from a colocation provider into a sophisticated hybrid cloud specialist. This evolution was driven by the recognition that enterprises require a bridge between their legacy investments and the agility of modern cloud architectures. Today, UnitedLayer is recognized for its ability to handle mission-critical workloads that require 100% uptime and rigorous regulatory compliance.
Company Differentiation
UnitedLayer distinguishes itself through a "Customer-First" philosophy that prioritizes high-touch engineering support over the self-service, transactional models typical of larger hyperscalers. Their organizational culture is built around the concept of becoming an extension of the client's IT team. This is evidenced by their commitment to a 15-minute response time SLA and a business model that eschews the "one size fits all" approach.
Unlike many infrastructure providers that focus solely on hardware or software, UnitedLayer’s uniqueness lies in its holistic ownership of the stack. They manage the physical data centers, the private cloud orchestration layer, and the managed services layer. This vertical integration allows them to offer a level of accountability and customization that is rare in the industry. Furthermore, their focus on "Complex Hybrid Cloud" means they intentionally seek out the most difficult migration and management challenges—such as legacy mainframe integration or highly regulated healthcare workloads—where their expertise in compliance and bespoke architecture provides the most value. Their leadership emphasizes a culture of continuous innovation, reinvesting significantly into their Unity™ management platform to ensure that as the market shifts toward AI and edge computing, their clients have a seamless path forward.
Company Demographics
Product Offerings
UnitedLayer provides several distinct but integrated product tiers:
- UnitedPrivateCloud: A fully managed, software-defined private cloud based on VMware, offering dedicated compute and storage with cloud-like elasticity.
- UnitedColocation: Tier 3 data center space with high-density power options, ideal for customers who want to own their hardware but outsource the facility and network.
- UnitedCloudConnect: High-speed private on-ramps to AWS, Azure, and GCP, enabling low-latency hybrid cloud architectures.
- UnitedDRaaS: A comprehensive Disaster Recovery as a Service offering with automated orchestration and regular failover testing.
- Unity Platform: The overarching management software included with cloud services that provides multi-cloud visibility, automation, and analytics.
- Managed Services (G3): Tiered levels of management for OS, Databases, Security, and Compliance, allowing customers to choose their level of 'hands-on' involvement.
Product Differentiation
The primary product differentiator for UnitedLayer is the Unity™ One platform. Unity serves as a "single pane of glass" management console that provides unified visibility and control over diverse environments, including private clouds, colocation assets, and public clouds like AWS, Azure, and GCP. This platform goes beyond basic monitoring; it offers deep insights into power consumption, environmental metrics, network topology, and automated compliance reporting.
Technical advantages include:
- Software-Defined Everything: Their private cloud solutions are built on a software-defined architecture (SDN and SDS), allowing for rapid scaling and high-availability configurations that mimic the flexibility of the public cloud but with the security of dedicated hardware.
- High-Density Colocation: Their data centers are engineered to support high-density power requirements (up to 25kW per rack), making them an ideal choice for modern AI and machine learning workloads that require significant GPU compute power.
- Advanced Interconnectivity: UnitedLayer offers a robust "Cloud Connect" mesh, providing low-latency, private on-ramps to major public cloud providers, which is essential for high-performance hybrid architectures.
- Compliance-as-a-Service: Their products are built with "compliance by design," featuring pre-configured environments that meet HIPAA, PCI-DSS, SOC 1/2, and FISMA standards out of the box, significantly reducing the audit burden for their clients.
