RDX Nabs Navisite for Its VMware, Azure, and Office 365 Moxy

The cloud and application managed service provider RDX has completed a purchase announced last week of managed service provider and data center operator Navisite for an undisclosed amount. Navisite's previous owner, Charter Communications, sold the company to focus on its fiber-based connectivity and services.

RDX, which specializes in remote database administration and managed data infrastructure services, hopes to leverage Navisite's extensive VMware, Microsoft Azure, and Office 365 cloud services expertise.

"We are building RDX into a next-generation cloud provider with a unique portfolio of business-centric strategy and services," Mark Clayman, RDX's CEO, said in a statement. "Our goal is to enable enterprises to shed the constraints of legacy IT, so they can move to a cloud-driven model of innovation, insight, and enablement that drives revenue, margins and ROI."

Navisite became part of Charter's portfolio when it acquired Time Warner Cable in 2016. Time Warner bought the company in 2011 for $230 million in a push to make itself more attractive to large enterprise customers. That deal included something like 570 employees and ten data centers.

Six data centers remain under Navisite's control, three in the US (including a 56,000-square foot facility near the company's headquarters in Andover, Massachusetts, and a 3.6MW data center in Santa Clara, California) and three in the UK (notably a 17,700-square foot operation in Woking).

"As part of our ongoing prioritization and refinement of our portfolio, this divestiture will accelerate the execution of our strategy to serve America’s largest businesses and communications service providers as a national service provider of scalable fiber-based technology solutions," Phil Meeks, executive VP and president of Charter Communications' Spectrum Enterprise, said in a statement.

Navisite is the third MSP RDX has acquired this year. In February the Warrendale, Pennsylvania-based company acquired both ClearDB, a database-as-a-service provider, and Clckwrk, which focuses on Amazon Web Services database migration and management.

"Backed by Madison Dearborn Partners, we have made several strategic acquisitions this year to build out our portfolio of services and expertise," said Gina Murphy, RDX president and COO, in a statement. "Our mission is clear: build the premier global technology service provider."

Navasite also brings to the table it's status as a Microsoft Azure Expert Managed Service Provider. According to RDX, more than 400 Microsoft-certified employees holding more than 1,400 certifications are included in the deal.

"This complements RDX’s existing AWS expertise to provide a full range of services and capabilities to customers, spanning on-premise, hosted, cloud, multi-cloud, and hybrid cloud environments," the company said.