John Hudson, director of service provider solutions for Lumenate, a Dallas-based IT consulting firm and CenturyLink partner, after CenturyLink closed its data center deal to sell 57 of its facilities to a consortium led by investment firm BC Partners. CenturyLink will still resell co-location and cloud capabilities.

"This is a continuation of the consolidation we are seeing in the cloud industry. Whoever owns the real estate is of no consequence to our business."