Fortress International Group has acquired the data center integration services business from arvato digital services for about US$1.5m. Fortress provides consulting, engineering, construction management and site services for mission-critical facilities.

Located in Round Rock, Texas, the purchased business provides custom rack layout design and configuration for large enterprise IT solutions consisting of large banks of computer servers, digital information storage and networking equipment, with custom cabling, power and cooling within data center racks and mobile or containerized data centers.

The business also includes testing and deployment, including on-site installation and network set-up of completed data center racks and mobile or containerized data centers. Additionally, it provides configuration services including the configuration of IT equipment, which consists of loading applications or systems software, customizing memory or storage capacities, adding peripherals, and testing (including hardware power-up testing, diagnostics and software boot testing).

Fortress CEO Anthony Angelini said the acquisition expanded the company's data center services by adding IT-integration services. “This acquisition is strategically significant and will be financially accretive to our business,” he said.

“Strategically, the acquired integration business is an ideal complement to our current offerings in both the traditional and modular data center markets. As the company evolves, our ability to perform a full range of services for data center customers both to the rack, and now inside the rack, will enhance the value proposition that our customers gain by trusting their data center requirements to us.”

Angelini said Fortress expected a number of synergies in both business development and cost savings from integration of the two companies' sales teams, existing customers and management teams.

The acquired business is expected to generate more than $10m of annualized revenue.