CenturyLink Acquires Tier3
CenturyLink has been searching for methods of expanding their cloud offerings. Instead of building out their own cloud infrastructure, CenturyLink made the decision that other tech giants have discovered is the easiest method of expanding cloud infrastructure; Buyout a cloud start-up and capitalize on their success. The model of buying out cloud infrastructures and rebranding it under a corporate umbrella has become the most cost-effective method of expanding an existing cloud while providing the quickest turnaround for investors and consumers. CenturyLink has realized this and they have seized their opportunity to bring Tier 3 under their umbrella of offerings. The acquisition amount is currently undisclosed although the amount is expected to be disclosed at a later date.
Earlier this year, CenturyLink acquired another cloud service making the acquisition of Tier 3 the 2nd cloud acquisition of 2013. Tier 3 specializes in IaaS (Information as a Service) while providing an advanced platform for managing such services. Earlier this year, Tier 3 had acquired AppFog which accelerated Tier 3’s entrance into the PaaS (Platform as a Service) market. CenturyLink looks to solidify its infrastructure by adding the 9 datacenters that Tier 3 owns into its portfolio of 55 datacenters that CenturyLink acquired when they merged with Savvis in 2011. In addition to these offerings, CenturyLink plans on building up to 4 datacenters in 2014.
Tier 3 has given administrators advanced features such as mapping out entire networks within the cloud which can model traditional private datacenter infrastructure. Since Tier 3 clients can setup load balancers, VLANS and VPN networks within the cloud, much of the headache and overhead of setting up a traditional corporate networking infrastructure has been eliminated. The end result is that Tier 3 clients can easily move their applications into the cloud once the infrastructure is already in place. With the acquisition of Tier 3, CenturyLink has positioned itself to take on the top competition in the cloud market including the likes of Amazon and Microsoft.
