Provider Profile
TierPoint for IBM Power: Independent Profile
TierPoint runs 40 US data centers and one of the broader compliance portfolios in the mid-market. Its IBM Power practice, though, is delivered by two specialist partners rather than by TierPoint itself, and both changed owners during 2025. Here's what the company publishes, and what to confirm yourself.
Independent profile, not sponsored by, affiliated with, or endorsed by this provider.
What is TierPoint?
TierPoint is a US colocation and managed infrastructure provider with 40 data centers across 20 markets. It sells managed IBM Power services for IBM i and AIX, covering 24x7x365 monitoring, firmware currency, backup verification, and replicated disaster recovery. The important structural fact is that TierPoint's own IBM Power page carries a section headed IBM Power Systems Partners and links to fact sheets for CloudFirst and Tectrade: the Power platform and the IBM i skills sit with those partners, while TierPoint is the contracting, billing, and support entity. Both partners changed ownership in 2025, and TierPoint's own control changed in December 2025. Treat TierPoint as a hybrid infrastructure provider that can include IBM i, not as an IBM Power specialist.
At a Glance
TierPoint Specifications
Everything below is drawn from what TierPoint publishes. Items marked vendor-stated are the provider's claims, not independently verified figures: treat them as questions to raise, not as confirmed specifications.
- IBM i
- AIX
- Linux on Power (partner-stated)
| Provider type | Colocation and managed infrastructure. IBM Power production and recovery are delivered through named partners, not by TierPoint staff |
|---|---|
| Delivery partners (vendor-stated) | CloudFirst and Tectrade. CloudFirst was sold by Data Storage Corporation to Performive, backed by Renovus Capital Partners, closing September 2025. Tectrade sits inside CSI Group, which Park Place Technologies acquired in May 2025 |
| Footprint (vendor-stated) | 40 data centers across 20 US markets and 18 states. No non-US sites. The securitized collateral pool covering the business names 33 facilities, 10 owned and 23 leased, so the operating set is smaller than the marketing number |
| Which sites run IBM Power | Not published anywhere. The only public evidence is a 2022 IT Jungle report of Power systems in four TierPoint sites in New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Texas, which predates the CloudFirst sale. Assume Power is in a single-digit number of facilities |
| Ownership | Argo Infrastructure Partners took a majority stake in December 2025 after buying out most minority shareholders. Argo itself was acquired by Apollo Global Management, announced January 2025. A CEO search was announced in March 2026, with Jerry Kent staying until a successor is named |
| Hardware and OS detail | No POWER generation and no IBM i release range appears on any TierPoint page or partner fact sheet. Linux on Power is absent from the main IBM Power page but named in the partner fact sheets and on the DRaaS page |
| Managed services (vendor-stated) | 24x7x365 monitoring, management, and maintenance of IBM components, proactive performance management keeping OS and firmware current, backup verification with point-in-time recovery, and a replicated DR environment |
| DR objectives (partner-stated) | The two partners quote different numbers. Tectrade markets RPO near zero and RTO of 2 to 4 hours. CloudFirst markets ezAvailability at under a minute RPO and under 15 minutes RTO, and ezMirror at 5 to 10 minutes RPO and under 2 hours RTO. Nothing on TierPoint's page tells you which stack you would get |
| DR test cadence (vendor-stated) | Annual drills. If you need quarterly testing, negotiate it explicitly |
| Published SLAs | A 100 percent uptime SLA on colocation and a minute-level response commitment on priority 1 and 2 tickets. No IBM Power-specific uptime SLA is published, and the financially backed recovery-time SLAs TierPoint advertises attach to Zerto, which does not protect IBM Power |
| Compliance (vendor-stated, renewed December 2025) | SOC 1 Type 2, SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 2 plus HITRUST, PCI DSS 4.0.1, NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, HIPAA and HITECH, GLBA, ISO 27001:2022, ITAR, and Data Privacy Framework registration. Note the IBM Power page still cites EU-US Privacy Shield, which was invalidated in 2020 |
| Pricing | Nothing published. Subscription and consumption based, quoted per deal |
Vendor pages last checked August 2026. Providers change offerings without notice: confirm current details directly.
Visit the provider's IBM Power page →Where It Is Strong
What TierPoint Does Well
Points that genuinely differentiate this provider, based on what it publishes and how it is positioned in the IBM Power market.
One contract for a genuinely mixed estate
This is the real reason to shortlist TierPoint. It can put IBM i partitions, the x86 fleet, the Azure or AWS footprint, and DR for all of it on a single contract with a single bill. Very few IBM i specialists can do that.
Compliance breadth that is unusual at this size
SOC 1 and SOC 2 Type 2, SOC 2 plus HITRUST, PCI DSS 4.0.1, NIST SP 800-53 Rev. 5, HIPAA, GLBA, ISO 27001:2022, and ITAR, all renewed in December 2025. If a regulator is why you are leaving your own machine room, that is a substantive advantage.
Geographic choice inside one provider
40 sites across 20 markets means you can usually place production and DR in different regions without adding a second vendor. Confirm which of those sites actually run Power before you rely on it.
Colocation plus managed Power
Suited to a phased move where some hardware stays yours in a TierPoint cage while other workloads shift to managed capacity. TierPoint will also monitor and manage IBM Power left on your own premises.
Fit Check
Is TierPoint a Good Fit?
Best fit
Good fit signals
Organizations whose IBM i is one part of a mixed estate, who need a specific US geographic spread between production and recovery, or who have compliance requirements like ITAR, HITRUST, or PCI DSS 4.0.1 and want them covered by one provider.
Use caution
Proceed with caution if
You are buying a reseller wrapper, and the layer underneath moved twice in 2025. TierPoint's own page names CloudFirst and Tectrade as the IBM Power delivery partners. CloudFirst was sold to Performive, a Renovus Capital-backed provider, in September 2025. Tectrade sits inside CSI Group, bought by Park Place Technologies in May 2025. TierPoint itself came under Argo majority control in December 2025, and Argo was acquired by Apollo. That is four ownership changes across one delivery chain in about a year, none of them disclosed on the IBM Power page. Separately, TierPoint publishes no POWER generation, no IBM i release range, no list of which facilities host Power, and no Power-specific uptime SLA, while its capital and its CEO-search narrative are pointed squarely at AI and GPU colocation.
Key decision
Decision point
Decide whether you are buying breadth or depth. If IBM i is your whole world, a specialist will give you clearer platform disclosure, a named IBM partner tier, and better small-LPAR economics. If IBM i is one workload among many and compliance matters, TierPoint's single-contract coverage may be worth more than IBM i depth.
Due Diligence
What to Verify Before You Sign
Take these to the provider in writing. Anything that only exists in a slide deck is not a commitment.
Which partner is actually on the contract
Ask outright whether CloudFirst or Tectrade delivers your environment, and get that entity named in the agreement. The two quote materially different recovery objectives, so the answer changes what you are buying.
What happens if the partner is sold again
Both delivery partners changed hands in 2025. Ask what your rights are if the partnership ends or the partner is acquired, who owns the migration cost, and how much notice you get.
POWER generation and the hardware refresh
No generation is published anywhere. Ask which POWER generation your frame is, what its IBM hardware support end date is, what IBM i release ceiling that implies, and who pays for the refresh when you outgrow it.
Which named facilities host production and DR
A 40-site footprint tells you nothing about Power availability. Get both buildings named, then request the SOC 2 report and ISO 27001 scope statement for each one rather than relying on the company-level list.
A Power-specific uptime SLA
The 100 percent uptime figure is a colocation facility SLA and the financially backed recovery-time claims belong to Zerto, an x86 product. Get a written uptime and recovery commitment for the IBM Power service itself, with the remedy stated.
DR test cadence beyond annual
TierPoint commits to annual drills. If your recovery obligation needs more, put the number of tests, the scope, and a written report obligation into the contract.
The real price of the partner layer
Get a comparison quote direct from CloudFirst or from an independent IBM i cloud so you know what the intermediary layer costs you.
TierPoint FAQ
Does TierPoint deliver IBM Power itself?
Not directly. Its own IBM Power page carries a section headed IBM Power Systems Partners, describing CloudFirst and Tectrade as a natural extension of our team, tightly integrated from design to billing to support, and links to a fact sheet for each. TierPoint is the contracting and billing entity; the Power platform and the IBM i engineering sit with the partner. Ask which one you would be assigned to.
Did TierPoint's IBM Power partners change hands recently?
Both did, in 2025. Data Storage Corporation sold the CloudFirst business to Performive, backed by Renovus Capital Partners, closing in September 2025 for around 40 million dollars gross, with the CloudFirst brand and leadership said to remain intact. Tectrade had already been absorbed into CSI Group, and Park Place Technologies acquired CSI in May 2025. Neither change is mentioned on TierPoint's IBM Power page.
Does TierPoint run IBM Power in all of its data centers?
No, and it does not publish which ones do. The 40-site figure is its total colocation footprint. The only public evidence of specific Power locations is a January 2022 IT Jungle report of four TierPoint sites in New York, Massachusetts, North Carolina, and Texas, and that predates the CloudFirst sale. Ask for the specific facilities that can host your partitions and your DR environment.
Does TierPoint support Linux on Power?
Its main IBM Power page names IBM i and AIX only. Linux on Power does appear in the Tectrade fact sheet and in the IBM Recovery variant of its DRaaS menu. Confirm support explicitly rather than assuming it is included.
Does TierPoint sell IBM Power Virtual Server?
No mention of PowerVS appears anywhere on its IBM pages, and TierPoint publishes no IBM partner tier despite publishing its VMware Pinnacle tier. Its delivery partner CloudFirst has published content positioning itself against PowerVS on cost. If a PowerVS option matters to you, look at a provider that resells it directly.
Is TierPoint an option if I need a data center outside the US?
Its published footprint is US-only. If you need EU or APAC presence, look at providers with international sites, at IBM Power Virtual Server regions, or at Kyndryl Cloud Uplift inside Azure.
Sources
- TierPoint: IBM Power Systems managed services
- TierPoint: data center locations
- TierPoint: certification renewals (December 2025)
- TierPoint: CEO search announcement (March 2026)
- Data Center Dynamics: Argo takes majority stake in TierPoint (December 2025)
- Data Storage Corporation: closing of the CloudFirst sale to Performive (September 2025)
- Park Place Technologies: acquisition of CSI, Tectrade's parent (May 2025)
- TierPoint: How DRaaS enhances IBM Power Systems resiliency
- POWER generation, IBM i release support, and a Power-specific SLA. Request directly from TierPoint
Independent Advisory Notice
Power Systems Advisors is an independent advisory resource and is not IBM. IBM, IBM Power, IBM i, AIX, PowerVM, Power Virtual Server, and other marks belong to their respective owners. Product availability, compatibility, pricing, and support should be verified with IBM or the relevant provider. Recommendations depend on the customer's specific environment.
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