**Editor’s Note: Please click here for a recap of the biggest channel-impacting mergers in Q1 2015.**

By Edward Gately

vXchnge, the colocation provider, is now in 15 North American markets with the acquisition of eight data centers from Sungard Availability Services.

According to vXchnge, it will integrate the Sungard AS business operations, staff and customer base, ensuring that each data center meets all of its customer service and operational standards. It is planning a “smooth transition period” for customers.

The data centers are located in Portland, Oregon; Austin, Texas; Minneapolis-St. Paul; St. Louis; Pittsburgh, Raleigh, North Carolina; and Nashville.

“We see tremendous opportunities directly tied to this transaction,” said Keith Olsen, vXchnge’s CEO. “It accelerates our strategic presence in edge-based marketplaces for companies to grow their businesses. These marketplaces operate as deployment points for our customers’ network-enabled applications and cloud services that require safe, secure and resilient data centers.”

vXchnge is currently in eight markets. The expansion enables it to “tackle the distance to customer or localization issues cloud and service providers are currently facing.”

“A key point to this transaction is that we retain the data center operation teams in each location,” Olsen said. “These operation teams have been delighting customers for years, and these markets, data centers and employees add to our existing footprint, which increases our operating scale and market reach.”

These [data] centers house customers who largely purchase colocation services,” Sungard AS told Channel Partners in a prepared statement. “We will continue to serve our customers located in those centers who are leveraging our managed and cloud services. We still support colocation services and it remains a growing business for us.”

In addition, Sungard AS said the agreement supports its overall business strategy to invest in the markets where it can deliver its “broader, integrated solutions.” In recent years, it has either opened or expanded more than 10 data centers serving Philadelphia, New York, Denver, the Midlands UK, Stockholm, Toronto and other key markets.

This year, Sungard AS will be expanding in Houston; Carlstadt, New Jersey; Dublin and other potential locations. Providing “robust infrastructure in key markets continues to be an important element of our delivery of high availability to customers,” the company said.

Partners might be more familiar with Sungard AS’ channel program than that of vXchnge. The colocation provider says it helps its partners build their brands expand their product and service portfolios by extending to customers their own “micro data centers.” vXchnge promises competitive commissions, around-the-clock technical support; marketing support; a dedicated channel-partner team; and more.