HIPAA Compliant Colocation
HIPAA Compliant Data Centers, Hosting, Physical Safeguards and Disaster Recovery
A healthcare breach costs $7.42 million on average, more than any other industry. Send us the requirement and we shortlist the data centers and private clouds that meet HIPAA and fit your workload, quoted at once.
Find HIPAA Compliant HostingHIPAA compliant colocation means housing servers that store or process electronic protected health information (ePHI) in a data center whose physical security, policies and contract terms support your HIPAA obligations. There is no such thing as a HIPAA certified data center: the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services does not certify facilities. What a HIPAA compliant data center offers instead is an independent HIPAA attestation or audit report, usually alongside SOC 2 Type II and sometimes HITRUST, plus a signed business associate agreement where one applies. Compliance is shared: the facility covers most of the physical safeguards, and you remain responsible for the technical and administrative ones. Whether you call it HIPAA colocation or healthcare colocation, the way to find the right facility is to put the requirement, with its compliance terms, in front of every qualifying operator at once.
Sources: IBM Cost of a Data Breach Report 2025; HIPAA Journal on the Security Rule timeline. Figures as of September 2026.
We confirm each facility's current attestation report, its scope and date, and whether it signs a BAA before it reaches your shortlist.
One requirement goes to every qualifying operator, including Flexential, DataBank, Digital Realty, Equinix and CoreSite, on the same day.
Access logs, audit rights, media handling and breach notification are negotiated before you sign, not discovered at your first audit.
The operator you choose pays us from its channel budget. Your rate is not marked up, and you'll hear back within 24 hours.
What Makes a Data Center HIPAA Compliant?
The HIPAA Security Rule sets three kinds of safeguards for ePHI: administrative, physical and technical. A data center can only deliver part of them, so HIPAA compliance in colocation is a split of responsibilities, and the split is what an auditor will ask you to document.
| Who covers it | HIPAA safeguards | What that means in practice |
|---|---|---|
| The data center | Most physical safeguards: facility access controls, security plan, visitor and maintenance records, environmental protection | Badges, biometrics, cameras, access logs, guards, fire suppression and power, evidenced by the facility's attestation report |
| You, the tenant | Technical safeguards and most administrative ones: access control to systems, encryption, audit logging, risk analysis, workforce training | Who can log in, how ePHI is encrypted, what is logged, and your own policies and risk assessment |
| Shared | Contingency planning, device and media handling, the business associate agreement | Backups and disaster recovery, how drives are removed and destroyed, and the contract terms that bind the facility |
HIPAA Physical Safeguards: What the Data Center Covers
The HIPAA physical safeguards, at 45 CFR 164.310, are the part of the Security Rule a data center does the most to satisfy. Each standard below is mapped to the facility control that addresses it and to who carries the responsibility in colocation.
| Physical safeguard | Data center control | Who is responsible |
|---|---|---|
| Facility access controls164.310(a)(1) | Perimeter security, badge and biometric entry, mantraps, guards, cameras and visitor logs | The data center, documented in its attestation report |
| Contingency operationsaddressable | Procedures for facility access during an emergency, generators and redundant power | Shared: the facility's procedures, your contingency plan |
| Facility security planaddressable | The written plan protecting the building and equipment from unauthorized access and theft | The data center |
| Access control and validationaddressable | Access lists by role, escorted visitors, and controlled access to your cage or cabinet | Shared: the facility enforces it, you maintain your access list |
| Maintenance recordsaddressable | Records of repairs to physical security components such as doors, locks and cameras | The data center |
| Workstation use and security164.310(b) and (c) | Locked cabinets and cages, and rules for consoles and crash carts on the data center floor | Mostly you; the facility provides locked space |
| Device and media controls164.310(d)(1) | Logged movement of hardware in and out, secure drive destruction, and media re-use procedures | Shared: you set the policy, the facility logs and enforces equipment movement |
Source: 45 CFR 164.310, physical safeguards. Responsibility split is Metro Colo Advisory's summary of typical colocation arrangements; confirm yours in the contract. Free to cite with a link to this page.
Does a Colocation Provider Sign a BAA?
A business associate agreement is the contract HIPAA requires with any vendor that creates, receives, maintains or transmits ePHI on your behalf. Whether a colocation provider is a business associate depends on its access: HHS has said that a cloud provider storing ePHI is a business associate even if it cannot view the data. Colocation is less clear-cut, because the provider houses your servers but normally has no access to the data on them, and practice varies. Many operators that serve healthcare will sign a BAA or an equivalent agreement; others decline and rely on their attestation report. Ask early, get the answer in writing, and have your compliance team decide what your risk analysis requires.
Source: HHS guidance on HIPAA and cloud computing. This is general information, not legal advice.
What to Ask a HIPAA Compliant Data Center
Verifying data center HIPAA compliance comes down to six questions. Ask each operator the same ones, in writing.
The attestation report
A current independent HIPAA attestation or audit, with its date and scope. Make sure your specific facility is in scope, not just the company.
SOC 2 Type II, HITRUST, ISO 27001
SOC 2 Type II covers how controls performed over time. HITRUST CSF maps directly to HIPAA and is the strongest signal for healthcare. ISO 27001 covers the security program.
The BAA
Whether the operator signs one, on whose paper, and what it says about breach notification, subcontractors and audit rights.
Access and records
How access lists are managed, how long access logs and video are kept, and whether you can get them for an investigation or audit.
Hardware and media
How equipment movement is logged, and whether the facility offers witnessed or certified drive destruction.
Recovery
Power and cooling redundancy, generator runtime, and whether the operator has a second facility in another region for disaster recovery.
Send the requirement and your compliance needs. We confirm attestation reports, BAA terms and certifications across the qualifying facilities and bring back quotes side by side. The operator you choose pays us, and you'll hear back within 24 hours.
HIPAA Compliant Hosting: Colocation, Bare Metal or Cloud?
HIPAA compliant hosting comes in four forms, and each splits responsibility differently. Any of them can support compliance; none of them makes you compliant on its own.
| Option | Who owns what | HIPAA considerations | Best for |
|---|---|---|---|
| Colocation | You own the servers; the facility provides space, power, cooling and physical security | Facility covers most physical safeguards; you control the data, encryption and access. BAA practice varies | Hospitals, health systems and vendors with their own hardware and steady workloads |
| HIPAA compliant server hostingbare metal | The provider owns and maintains dedicated servers you rent | The provider handles the hardware, so a BAA is usually needed. No capital outlay | Moving fast, or replacing aging hardware without buying more |
| HIPAA compliant private cloudmanaged | The provider runs a dedicated cloud environment for you on its hardware | The provider manages the hardware and platform, so a BAA is needed; you keep cloud flexibility without sharing infrastructure. No capital outlay | Practices, clinics, health tech vendors and hospitals that want dedicated infrastructure without owning or running it |
| HIPAA compliant cloud hosting | The cloud provider owns everything below your configuration | AWS, Azure and Google Cloud sign BAAs, but only for their HIPAA-eligible services, and configuration is your responsibility | Variable workloads and teams built around cloud services |
Healthcare Cloud Providers and HIPAA Compliant Hosting Providers
Healthcare cloud providers fall into two groups, and healthcare cloud hosting from each works differently. The public clouds, AWS, Microsoft Azure and Google Cloud, offer BAAs for their HIPAA-eligible services and leave configuration to you. Managed private cloud and hosting providers run dedicated environments, sign BAAs and take on more of the work, which suits organizations without a large infrastructure team. The right choice depends on your workloads, your team and what your risk analysis requires, and the BAA terms differ from provider to provider.
Comparing HIPAA compliant hosting providers? We quote managed private cloud, dedicated hosting and colocation side by side, with each provider's BAA terms confirmed, so you choose the model as well as the provider. The provider you choose pays us, at no cost to you. Send the requirement and you'll hear back within 24 hours.
For HIPAA compliant data storage, the same split applies: storage arrays and backup appliances in colocation, rented storage servers, or cloud object storage under a BAA. Steady, large archives of imaging and records are usually cheaper on owned storage in colocation over three to five years. See bare metal, hybrid cloud and cloud repatriation.
Epic and EHR Hosting
Electronic health record systems are the most critical workload a health system runs. There are three ways to host one: the EHR vendor hosts it (Epic, for example, runs a hosting service for many of its customers), a third-party hosting provider runs it, or the health system self-hosts it in its own data center or in colocation. Self-hosting gives the most control over performance, upgrades and data, and colocation removes the burden of running a building to get it.
Uptime above all
An EHR outage stops clinical work. Look for concurrently maintainable power and cooling, and a documented track record.
Latency to clinics
Clinicians feel every millisecond. Facilities in the same metro as hospitals and clinics, with diverse carrier routes, matter more than price.
A second site
EHR hosting needs a disaster recovery site in another region, with replication tested on a schedule your contingency plan defines.
HIPAA Backup Requirements and Healthcare Disaster Recovery
The Security Rule's contingency plan standard, at 45 CFR 164.308(a)(7), is where backup and disaster recovery become legal requirements rather than good practice. Three of its parts are required, not addressable.
| Contingency plan element | Status | What it means for your infrastructure |
|---|---|---|
| Data backup plan | Required | Retrievable, exact copies of ePHI, kept somewhere a single event cannot destroy along with the original |
| Disaster recovery plan | Required | Procedures to restore lost data, which in practice means a recovery site and tested restores |
| Emergency mode operation plan | Required | How critical processes keep running, and ePHI stays protected, during an emergency |
| Testing and revision | Addressable | Periodic tests of the plans, including failover to the recovery site |
| Applications and data criticality | Addressable | Which systems come back first, which sets the recovery targets for each |
Source: 45 CFR 164.308(a)(7). The proposed Security Rule update would add written procedures to restore critical systems within 72 hours.
HIPAA Compliant Backup and HIPAA Compliant Cloud Storage
Most healthcare organizations meet the backup and disaster recovery requirements without building a second data center. HIPAA compliant backup as a service copies your data to a provider's environment under a BAA, encrypted and kept away from the original. HIPAA compliant cloud storage holds archives such as imaging and records the same way. Disaster recovery as a service goes further, keeping replicas of your systems ready to run at the provider if your primary site fails. All three are priced monthly, with no hardware to buy. See backup as a service and disaster recovery as a service (DRaaS) for pricing and how to choose a provider.
Need HIPAA compliant disaster recovery or backup? We quote backup, cloud storage and disaster recovery as a service from providers that sign BAAs, side by side, so your contingency plan is covered at the right price. The provider you choose pays us, at no cost to you. Send the requirement and you'll hear back within 24 hours.
For HIPAA disaster recovery at most healthcare organizations, that means a primary site and a recovery site in different regions, on different power grids and outside the same weather and seismic risks, with replication and restores tested on a schedule. See disaster recovery colocation.
HIPAA Compliant AI: Running AI on Patient Data
Healthcare organizations want AI on clinical notes, imaging and claims, and every one of those involves ePHI. There are two compliant routes. One is an AI vendor that signs a BAA for the specific service you use. The other is running models on your own GPU servers in a HIPAA compliant data center, so patient data never leaves infrastructure you control. The second route suits steady, high-volume inference and organizations whose risk analysis does not allow ePHI to leave their environment.
Density
GPU servers draw far more power than EHR servers. Confirm the facility can deliver your rack density, and whether liquid cooling reaches the rack. See AI and GPU colocation.
The same safeguards
A GPU hall needs the same attestation, access controls and BAA terms as the rest of your HIPAA footprint, which narrows the list of facilities quickly.
Renting first
Dedicated GPU servers rented under a BAA can come before buying hardware. See GPU rental.
The 2026 HIPAA Security Rule Update
HHS published a proposed overhaul of the Security Rule on January 6, 2025, the largest since 2013. It would make encryption of ePHI mandatory rather than addressable, require multi-factor authentication, require written procedures to restore critical systems within 72 hours, and tighten oversight of business associates. As of September 2026 it is still a proposed rule: the original May 2026 target passed, and the federal regulatory agenda now lists July 2027 for a final rule. The current Security Rule remains in force and enforced. For data center decisions, the practical effect is to favor facilities and contracts that already meet the proposed bar, especially on recovery time and business associate terms. Our analysis of the 2026 Security Rule for colocation covers the details.
Sources: Federal Register, January 6, 2025; HIPAA Journal.
HIPAA Compliant Data Centers by Market
Healthcare disaster recovery usually means a primary site near the organization's hospitals and clinics and a recovery site in another region. We place HIPAA compliant colocation and find the right healthcare data center in every major market, including New York and New Jersey, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Phoenix and Denver. For a New York health system, a HIPAA compliant data center in northern New Jersey or the Hudson Valley paired with a recovery site in another region is the common pattern.
How We Find HIPAA Compliant Colocation
You send the requirement
Cabinets or kilowatts, location, connectivity, the date, and your compliance needs: attestation, BAA, SOC 2, HITRUST.
We check every facility first
Current attestation reports, their scope and date, certifications and BAA terms, so only qualifying facilities reach your shortlist.
Every qualifying operator quotes at once
Same requirement, same day, compared on five-year totals rather than headline rates.
We negotiate before you sign
Compliance terms, access and audit rights, expansion and renewal caps, while they are still negotiable. The operator you choose pays us. How a data center broker works.
Frequently Asked Questions
What is HIPAA compliant colocation?
Housing servers that store or process ePHI in a data center whose physical security, policies and contract terms support your HIPAA obligations, evidenced by an independent HIPAA attestation report and, where it applies, a business associate agreement.
Is colocation HIPAA compliant?
Colocation can support HIPAA compliance, but no facility makes you compliant. The data center covers most physical safeguards; you remain responsible for technical safeguards such as encryption and access control, and for your own policies and risk analysis.
Is there such a thing as a HIPAA certified data center?
No. HHS does not certify data centers or vendors. A HIPAA compliant data center shows an independent HIPAA attestation or audit report, usually with SOC 2 Type II and sometimes HITRUST certification.
What are the HIPAA physical safeguards?
The standards at 45 CFR 164.310: facility access controls, workstation use, workstation security, and device and media controls. In colocation, the data center covers most facility access controls, and responsibility for the others is shared with you.
Does a colocation provider need to sign a BAA?
It depends on its access to ePHI. HHS treats a cloud provider storing ePHI as a business associate even if it cannot view the data; colocation providers normally have no access to the data on your servers, and practice varies. Many healthcare-focused operators will sign one. Ask early and let your compliance team decide.
What are HIPAA colocation requirements?
For the facility: a current HIPAA attestation covering your site, controlled and logged physical access, a documented security plan, logged equipment movement, secure media destruction, and redundant power and cooling. For the contract: a clear decision on the BAA, access to logs for audits, breach notification terms and a recovery site option. For you: encryption, access control and your own risk analysis.
What are the HIPAA data center requirements?
HIPAA sets no data center standard as such. The requirements come from the Security Rule's safeguards: controlled facility access, documented security plans, logged equipment movement, secure media disposal, and contingency planning with backup and disaster recovery.
What compliance certifications should I require from a colocation facility for a HIPAA audit?
A current independent HIPAA attestation covering your specific facility, a SOC 2 Type II report, and ideally HITRUST CSF certification, which maps directly to HIPAA. ISO 27001 is a useful addition. Check the dates and scope of each.
Which colocation providers can support HIPAA-regulated healthcare workloads?
Many of the large operators, including Flexential, DataBank, Digital Realty, Equinix and CoreSite, serve healthcare tenants, but attestation scope and BAA terms vary by company and by facility. We confirm both before a facility reaches your shortlist.
What are the HIPAA backup requirements?
The contingency plan standard requires a data backup plan, a disaster recovery plan and an emergency mode operation plan. In practice that means exact, retrievable copies of ePHI kept away from the original, and a tested way to restore them.
What does healthcare disaster recovery require?
A recovery site in another region, on a different grid and outside the same weather and seismic risks, with replication and restores tested on a schedule. The proposed Security Rule update would add a 72-hour restoration target for critical systems.
What is HIPAA compliant hosting?
Infrastructure for ePHI from a provider whose controls and contract support HIPAA: colocation for your own servers, dedicated server hosting under a BAA, or HIPAA-eligible cloud services under a cloud provider's BAA. Each splits responsibility differently.
How do you find HIPAA compliant AI colocation?
Look for a facility that can deliver GPU rack density and, if needed, liquid cooling, and that also has a current HIPAA attestation and acceptable BAA terms. The overlap is small, so compare facilities on both at once. We do that as part of the shortlist.
Who are the HIPAA compliant hosting providers?
Two groups: the public clouds, AWS, Azure and Google Cloud, which sign BAAs for their HIPAA-eligible services, and managed private cloud, dedicated hosting and colocation providers that sign BAAs and run dedicated environments. BAA terms and scope vary, so compare them alongside price.
What is HIPAA compliant cloud storage?
Storage for ePHI from a provider that signs a BAA, encrypts the data and controls access to it, used for backups and archives such as imaging and records. Public cloud storage can qualify under the cloud provider's BAA if you configure it correctly; managed storage and backup providers take on more of that work.
What is HIPAA compliant backup?
Backup that meets the Security Rule's required data backup plan: exact, retrievable copies of ePHI, encrypted and kept away from the original, with a provider that signs a BAA and restores you can test. Backup as a service delivers it monthly with no hardware to buy.
What is Epic hosting?
Epic runs a hosting service for many of its customers. Health systems that prefer control self-host Epic in their own data center or in colocation, which needs high uptime, low latency to clinics and a disaster recovery site in another region.
Has the 2026 HIPAA Security Rule update taken effect?
No. HHS proposed it on January 6, 2025, and as of September 2026 it is still a proposed rule, with the federal regulatory agenda targeting July 2027 for a final rule. The current Security Rule remains in force.
Where are HIPAA compliant data centers in New York?
HIPAA compliant colocation for New York organizations is mostly in Manhattan carrier buildings, northern New Jersey and the Hudson Valley, usually paired with a recovery site in another region. See our NYC metro data centers guide.
Do you place HIPAA compliant colocation and hosting?
Yes, along with HIPAA compliant private cloud, backup and disaster recovery as a service, across the qualifying providers in every major market, including Flexential, DataBank, Digital Realty, Equinix and CoreSite through formal channel partnerships. Send the requirement and you'll hear back within 24 hours. The provider you choose pays us, so it costs you nothing.
Find HIPAA Compliant Hosting
Send what you need: cabinets or kilowatts, location, connectivity, the date and your compliance requirements. You'll hear back within 24 hours with the qualifying facilities, their attestation and BAA terms confirmed, quoted at once and benchmarked against what comparable deployments pay.
That is what keeps every qualifying facility competing for your deployment. The operator you choose pays us, so it costs you nothing.
Markets: New York metro, Chicago, Dallas, Atlanta, Northern Virginia, Phoenix and Denver.
Buyer guides: the provider comparison, data center tiers, the data center lease guide, the colocation pricing guide and data center site selection.
Recovery, cloud and AI: backup as a service, DRaaS, disaster recovery colocation, hybrid cloud, cloud repatriation, bare metal, AI and GPU colocation and data center migration.
