Strategic, struggles, cloud build out, executives
Activity across the sector continued to be steady even with long weekends in the US, Canada and Singapore.
There was more strategic activity that reflected the changing currents within the sector. MSP SolarWinds acquired SpamExperts to strengthen its email security capabilities and NetApp acquired Greenqcloud as it looks to add cloud orchestration. Meanwhile, Skytap raised $45m in a Series E round. Skytap is a good example of how specialization and focus is key to success for independent infrastructure service providers.
There were also a few cases of failure on the data centre side that reflect a tightening market and the challenges of certain markets. ANEXIO acquired the remaining assets of Net Data Centers and a new provider in the UK focused on Manchester – DataCentred – is not in good shape and went in administration.
The global cloud build out continues and this has been a big driver behind data centre expansion. Digital Realty will be building a new wholesale campus in Garland, IO is expanding in Phoenix and DataBank added more power capacity in Utah. Meanwhile, large colocation customers like Salesforce are starting to see cloud as a way to solve their infrastructure requirements, particularly in global markets outside the US. In some cases, they will not directly consume third party colocation. But colocation remains a viable path and Faction moved its cloud platform into CoreSite data centres.
There was again movement in executive circles. Acronis shuffled and elevated a few executives and Codero brought in a familiar face to be CEO.
Earnings season is drawing to a close, but we have some more details on 21Vianet. Finally, there were a number of developments coming out of VMworld and we will have more details next week.
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