The steady stream of new about the data center industry continues. Here’s a roundup of a few notable announcements from this week.
Park Place Acquires Curvature
Data center hardware maintenance specialist Park Place Technologies this week announced the acquisition of Curvature an IT support and services company.
“Park Place and Curvature were both pioneers in this industry,” said Chris Adams, Park Place president and CEO. “With the addition of Curvature, our infrastructure support and services offerings are stronger, smarter and further reaching than ever before. In an environment where infrastructures rarely rely on equipment from a single supplier, and where budgets and resources are tighter than ever before, we have created a new tier of TPM (third-party maintenance) that positions us as a more compelling option versus the OEM.”
Park Place Technologies is a leader in the market for third-party maintenance (TPM) for data centers, providing support for as range of vendors and equipment. Founded in 1991, Park Place is a portfolio company of Charlesbank Capital Partners and GTCR, and has grown rapidly through both organic growth and acquisitions, and now works with 17,000 customers in data centers around the globe.
The Curvature deal enables Park Place to triple its spare parts inventory with more than 1.15 million parts now available in 2,400 stocking locations, and adds new markets in Denmark, Australia, Thailand, and Japan.
“The TPM market has remained strong and continues to see demand given the need for remote services during what’s become a protracted pandemic environment,” said Rob Brothers, program vice president for IDC’s data center and support services. “With this merger, customers can expect expanded coverage in both geography and equipment, as well as access to more parts locations, call centers, and engineering talent.”
Vapor IO Adds Hivelocity to Edge Network
Bare metal cloud provider Hivelocity will work with has Vapor IO to extend its cloud offering to edge data centers in Atlanta and Pittsburgh, with more deployments to come as the Vapor IO Kinetic Edge Network builds out its infrastructure to additional locations, the companies said this week. One of the first customers to use Hivelocity’s servicves on the Kinetic Edge platform is AlefEdge, which is deploying a private wireless mobile edge computing platform nationwide.
Vapor IO is creating a distributed network of edge colocation sites, housed in micro modular data centers that can be deployed at key points on the network, including telecom towers and antenna sites. The Kinetic Edge is Vapor IO’s network design, which uses both wired and wireless connections to create a reliable, low-latency network of colocation sites.
“Hivelocity is singularly focused on building out the most comprehensive bare metal cloud for edge computing,” said Richard Nicholas, SVP, Strategy and Corporate Development at Hivelocity. “To do this, we chose to partner with Vapor IO, as it’s Kinetic Edge platform provides the essential citywide infrastructure needed to deploy at the edge. Through this partnership, we’re aggressively rolling out our bare metal edge cloud to the top 36 US cities, making us one of the most comprehensive platforms for deploying edge workloads.”
The Atlanta deployment will be be part of Vapor IO’s joint core-to-edge solution with Digital Realty, which the companies say will allow customers like Hivelocity to deploy services more quickly and at lower cost.
“Hivelocity’s cloud resources on Vapor IO’s Kinetic Edge platform dramatically accelerates the deployment of edge-to-core applications and shifts the cost structure from CAPEX to OPEX,” said Cole Crawford, CEO and Founder at Vapor IO. “The combination of Hivelocity at-scale edge cloud deployments and Vapor IO’s nationwide Kinetic Edge platform will create the essential infrastructure upon which developers can deploy and operate next generation edge applications.”
Flexential Expands in Atlanta
Colocation provider Flexential is adding 3 megawatts (MW) of power and 20,000 square feet of floor space to its Alpharetta, Ga. data center, the company said this week. The extra space and power will be available in January and bring the data center to 143,000 total square feet and 6 MW of power.
“We will continue to invest in the Atlanta metro area to support demand from a growing demographic of data-centric industries including logistics, healthcare, finance and more,” said Ryan Mallory, chief operating officer, Colocation Services at Flexential. “We believe there is unlimited growth potential in this region and are proud to support some of the top essential businesses that keep the Atlanta area and the nation running effectively.”
The Flexential Atlanta data center opened in 2019, targeting the market for financial services and e-commerce in the Atlanta market. With more than 120 FinTech firms, Atlanta and the surrounding “Transaction Alley” are the third-largest FinTech hub in the U.S., according to Flexential.
Flexential was formed through the 2017 merger of Peak 10 and ViaWest to create a national network, and is backed by private equity firm GI Partners, an experienced investor in the data center industry.
