Carpathia Hosting has acquired its northern Virginia neighbor ServerVault, the companies said Wednesday, combining two providers with strong records in providing secure hosting and regulatory compliance for enterprise and government customers. Terms of the deal were not disclosed.
"We're putting together two very strong, very profitable companies, which were already poised for success," said Carpathia Hosting CEO Peter Weber. "The combination of five years of organic growth and this acquisition positions Carpathia Hosting as one of the fastest growing companies in the hosting industry."
Carpathia is based in Ashburn, Va. and operates 10 data centers across the United States, while ServerVault has its headquarters and data center in Dulles. Both companies do about 40 percent of their business with government agencies, and focus on "high touch" managed hosting services. The acquisition comes 15 months after Spire Capital acquired Carpathia Hosting and began expanding its data center footprint.
Focus on Compliance Expertise
Today's acquisition provides additional expertise in regulatory compliance, an area where ServerVault has built a strong practice. "ServerVault is recognized as the leading provider of highly-secure and compliance-centric hosting services," said Jon Greaves, the CTO of Carpathia. "We are very excited to build on this foundation and add Carpathia’s rich services portfolio and data center footprint."
As part of the acquisition, Carpathia Hosting is launching a new suite of services focused on compliance solutions. The new offerings will provide specific support for regulatory standards for government agencies (FISMA, DIACAP and agency-specific mandates) and enterprise customers in financial services (SOX, PCI and GLBA) and healthcare (HIPAA and electronic health records management).
Cloud Computing Benefits
Carpathia's business is split between colocation and managed services, and the ServerVault deal will help extend its cloud computing capabilities. Carpathia offers an InstantOn cloud solution built atop the Xen hypervisor, while ServerVault has offered a cloud platform customized for federal agencies. Weber says the company's combined pedigree in security and compliance will be a major asset in helping enterprise customers adopt cloud services.
"That's a significant differentiator," he said. "We believe we have a tremendous opportunity to leverage our combined strengths. Rather than being a do-it-yourself service, our cloud is delivered fully managed."
Experience with Federal Agencies
Then there's the government market, where both Carpathia and ServerVault have strong working relationships with leading systems integrators. "The federal space is a hard market to penetrate," said Weber. "We have the qualifications and clearances that are not easy to replicate quickly."
ServerVault has been providing secure hosting services since 1999, and its client list features a long list of federal agencies, including the CIA, DISA (DoD), Homeland Security, Veterans Affairs, SEC and the IRS. The company’s data center facility in Dulles is protected by a wrought-iron fence, with guards who are “armed and trained in all manner of physical threats,” according to the company’s web site. Access is controlled through proximity cards to enter the compound, and biometric sensors inside the facility.
Carpathia Hosting offers secure managed hosting services for federal and enterprise customers with high storage and bandwidth requirements. The company now manages more than 18.5 petabytes of storage and pushes over 350 Gigabits per second of content. Carpathia has data centers in Los Angeles, Calif.; Phoenix, Ariz.; Kansas City, Mo.; Toronto, Ontario; and Ashburn and Harrisonburg, Va., where it is the anchor tenant in the Blue Ridge Data Center.
Additional information about the acquisition is available on the Carpathia web site, including a list of frequently asked questions for customers of both companies.
