Savvis, one of the largest Western hosting companies, was acquired for $2.5 billion.

The deal to buy hosting company Savvis means that hosting companies are merging into larger ones.

CenturyLink bought Savvis, paying $2.5 billion in cash and stock.

The deal will create a unified hosting company. Savvis offered managed hosting, colocation, and cloud services in 32 data centers in the US, Europe, and Asia. CenturyLink has 16 data centers located in the US.

Before the acquisition, Savvis generated 83% of its revenue from operations in the US market, 13% from operations with European companies and about 4% from Asia.