Equinix, Carpathia Team on Dulles Data Vault

As the data center industry evolves, we're seeing some interesting partnerships in which multiple companies work together to create a specialized data center facility. A good example is a new project announced today in Dulles, Virginia, where Carpathia Hosting, Equinix and Digital Realty Trust will work together on a 64,000 square foot data vault to support industry-specific compliant solutions for healthcare companies and federal agencies.

The new facility will be adjacent to an existing Carpathia data center in Dulles. Carpathia has signed a build-to-suit agreement with a joint venture comprised of Equinix (EQIX) and Digital Realty Trust (DLR). The facility will be built by Digital Realty and managed by Equinix, while Carpathia will provide managed hosting and cloud services, along with armed, physical security.

"We are very pleased to be working with Equinix and Digital Realty to build such an impressive facility for our enterprise and federal agency customers," said Peter Weber, CEO of Carpathia Hosting. "With the new IBX Vault, our customers get access to an unparalleled combination in the industry; a data center built to Equinix's rigorous standards as well as our industry-leading complex, compliant managed hosting and cloud services."

Joining Forces to Address Complexity

"Combining the expertise of three separate companies, underscores the true complexities of delivering high-compliance hosting, cloud, and data center services to the market," said Doug Toombs, research manager at 451 Research. "We expect that more workloads will come under compliance requirements as the market for cloud computing continues to grow, and that service providers will need to continue to innovate to deliver comprehensive end-to-end solutions for their clients."

The new facility will support 7.3 megawatts of power and "defense-in-depth" security that includes perimeter fencing, armed guards, IT and network security, as well as multi-level biometric scanners. The IBX Vault will support commercial and government compliance standards including HIPAA and HITECH for healthcare, FISMA and DIACAP for federal agencies, PCI for the credit and payment card industry, and SOX for enterprises.

"We have delivered physical security for many years," said Weber. "It's a differentiator for us."

Physical Security as a Differentiator

In addition to operating its own data center in Dulles, Carpathia also leases space with Equinix in northern Virginia. Working together on the new data center will allow Carpathia to pursue requirements with specific security requirements.

"It allows us to control things we can't have at Equinix," said Brent Bensten, Vice President, Operations Carpathia. "We can have armed guards in the facility, which we couldn't at Equinix. We can set up a SCIF."

SCIF is short for Sensitive Compartmented Information Facility, a federal government standard for buildings that handle sensitive government data or intelligence. A key emphasis of the guidelines is the ability to impose extraordinary controls on building access.

This is the third project on which Equinix is partnering with Digital Realty Trust, following on projects in Ashburn, Virginia and Seattle.

"Our acquisitions and development programs, combined with our real estate expertise and financial resources, enable us to structure complicated transactions, such as this one, that help meet our customers' and business partners' long term objectives," said Chris Kenney, Vice President of Acquisitions for Digital Realty.

Carpathia Expanding HQ, opening new offices

Last week Carpathia announced the expansion of its corporate headquarters in Dulles, Va., in addition to the opening of two new offices in the Bay Area and New York City. Just one year after moving into its new corporate headquarters in Dulles, Carpathia is also adding an additional 10,000 square feet in office space to accommodate its recent growth. The expanded Carpathia headquarters will total 25,415 square feet and will feature an additional 70 workspaces and a 60-seat training and briefing room.

“This is an exciting time for Carpathia," said Weber. "Our profitable growth over the past several years has allowed us to consider other locations for additional offices. Expanding our presence to both New York City and the Bay Area presents a great opportunity for us to better serve our clients, coast to coast, while also enabling us to reach new customers that need enterprise managed hosting and cloud solutions.”

Carpathia was listed in the 2011 Inc 500 list of Fastest Growing Companies with a 316 percent 3-year growth and 109 employees.

Rich Miller contributed to this story.