Physical Path Governance for Colocation & Data Centres

Colocation facilities share power, cooling, fibre and management planes across many tenants. One compromised environment can become a launchpad into neighbouring cages. Control removes the shared paths that attackers rely on.

Shared infrastructure should not mean shared risk.

Flat Cross-Connects

Legacy cross-connects remain live indefinitely, creating persistent paths between customer environments that bypass normal network controls.

Shared Management Plane

Provider remote hands, out-of-band management and smart hands tools often reach every cage from a single console.

Tenant-to-Tenant Lateral Movement

A breach in one tenant estate can traverse shared infrastructure and reach another customer through a path that should never have existed.

Network Evolution & Rapid Protection (#NEARP)

"We thought each cage was isolated because the VLANs were different. Then we discovered a cross-connect had been left live for months. Logical separation is not enough when the physical cable still exists."

Where each module is deployed, and what it does there.

One row per module. Placement on the network, then plain-English purpose at that point.

1. 

   Isolate

   Between the shared fabric and every customer cage

   Each tenant sits on its own physical fabric. A broadcast storm, misconfigured route or compromised switch in the shared fabric cannot reach a customer cage.

2. 

   Firebreak

   On the P0 to P1 link and every P2 to CAGE link

   The provider has a real hardware off switch on the internet boundary and on every tenant boundary. An incident can be contained by severing the physical path.

3. 

   Validate

   On the P0 to P1 link and every P2 to CAGE link

   Inbound traffic and any request to open a tenant path are checked for origin, integrity and authority before they progress.

4. 

   Relay

   Between customer cages

   Cross-connects between tenants open for the approved window of work and close automatically. No path persists beyond the business need.

5. 

   Transfer

   Between customer cages

   When data must move between tenant environments, Transfer governs the route, the landing point and the audit trail.

6. 

   Lock

   On every P2 to CAGE link and every MGMT to CAGE link

   Access to a tenant cage or its equipment ties to a named, verified individual with the right authority. Shared remote-hands credentials are eliminated.

7. 

   Unlink

   Between customer cages and on the MGMT to CAGE links

   When a project ends or a tenant departs, the cross-connects and remote-hands access rights are removed. Residual trust does not accumulate.

Tenant Isolation at Layer 1

Customer environments are separated by physical path control, not only VLANs or ACLs. No exploit, misconfiguration or insider action can bridge the gap.

Shared Infrastructure Protection

Power, cooling, connectivity and management planes remain shared, but the attack surface is not. The provider's core infrastructure is protected from a single tenant compromise.

Cross-Connect Lifecycle Governance

Cross-connects are requested, approved, opened, audited and automatically closed. No cross-connect lives beyond its approved purpose.

Scheduled Maintenance Windows

Remote hands and engineering access open only during agreed windows, with full identity verification and session logging.

Audit-Ready Isolation Evidence

Every physical path change is recorded immutably, giving providers and tenants defensible evidence for SLAs, SOC 2, ISO 27001 and customer assurance questionnaires.

Offboarding Without Residual Trust

When a tenant leaves or a project ends, Unlink removes the cross-connects, access rights and inherited trust relationships that would otherwise persist for years.

Cross-Connect Inventory

Catalogue every live cross-connect, remote-hands access path and management-plane route between the provider fabric and customer cages.

Tenant Isolation Architecture

Map Control modules to the provider's physical topology, designing isolated fabrics per cage while preserving shared power, cooling and building security.

Pilot with One Hall

Deploy Control in a single data hall or cage row, validating cross-connect lifecycle governance without disrupting existing tenants.

Facility-Wide Go-Live

Extend physical path governance across all halls, activate tenant-facing isolation reports, and integrate audit logs into the provider's compliance workflow.