Service · cages and suites

Cages and suites in Amsterdam: private space from four racks

A cage is your own footprint inside a shared hall; a suite is walls and a door. Both give you your own access control and a power block you can grow into, which is the part worth reserving early.

What you get

Your perimeter, your power block, your pace.

Your own perimeter

Mesh cage inside the hall, or a walled suite with its own door. Your badge list decides who gets in, not the hall’s.

Access control

A power block, reserved

You commit a block in kW for the whole footprint and draw into it as you fill racks. Reserving early is how you stay in one hall.

Growth

Phased build-out

Rack the first eight, leave the tiles and containment ready for the rest. You pay for the block, not for empty steel.

Phased

Your own layout

Hot-aisle containment, your racks or theirs, your trays, your own meet-me fibre landing inside the cage.

Your design

Specs that matter

What a cage or suite is quoted on.

Space is the cheap part. The block of power, the build time and the option on the racks next door are what you are buying.

Size: 4–20 racks in a cage; suites from roughly 20 racks upwards. Below four racks, dedicated racks are cheaper.
Power block: Committed in kW for the whole footprint, typically 3–10 kW per rack air-cooled, more in a high-density hall.
Access: Your own badge list. Digital Realty and NorthC both pair a badge with biometrics at the entrance, and the cage door has its own lock. Visitors escorted or pre-registered.
Build-out: Cage build, containment and power drops typically 6–12 weeks after signature. Suites take longer.
Connectivity: Your own meet-me fibre into the cage, then cross-connects per carrier and IX ports from there.
Expansion: Reserve adjacent tiles and kW at signature. Amsterdam caps new build, so the option has real value.

How we place it

Four steps, from floor plan to badge list.

01
Tell us what you needRacks now, racks in two years, kW per rack, and whether you need walls rather than mesh.
02
We engineer and negotiateWe size the block, find halls with contiguous space, and negotiate the reservation as part of the deal.
03
We fast-track the introductionThe operator gets your footprint, power block and build-out dates in one brief, so the floor plan comes back fast.
04
You contract with the datacenterCage build, badge list and SLA run with the datacenter. We sit in the build calls.

Read the full process

Who we’ll send elsewhere

Not for a first rack, and not for a room you can live in.

Below four racks a cage costs more than it returns; take dedicated racks and reserve the neighbours instead. And a suite is still a datacenter hall: if what you want is a room your own staff sit in all day, say so early. Some operators allow it, most price it, and a few say no. We will tell you which before you get attached to a floor plan.

Questions we get

Cage or suite, power reservation, phasing, access.

Cage or suite?

A cage is mesh inside a shared hall: cheaper, faster to build, same hall SLA. A suite is walls, its own door and often its own cooling. Take the suite when you need physical separation for an auditor or for your own staff.

How much power should I reserve?

More than you draw today, less than the worst-case slide. The commit is what you pay for, but unreserved kW in Amsterdam may not exist when you come back for it. The permit stop and the grid queue behind that are in Capacity in Amsterdam in 2026.

Can I build it in phases?

Yes. Cage and containment up front, racks in tranches. The power block is the part you reserve on day one; the steel can follow. How to get the ramp into the contract is in the note on negotiating a rack price.

Do I get my own entrance?

In a suite, usually. In a cage you come in through the hall and then through your own cage door, on your own badge list.

Which campus takes a 20-rack footprint?

Science Park, Schiphol-Rijk and Amsterdam-Zuidoost all have halls with room, and which one changes by the quarter. We check live availability before we recommend a hall.