Access to Internet
applications arid others are provided by companies
with lots of computing resources, high performance
connections to
the Internet, and secure computing facilities known as
data centers.
Data centers are often built to withstand significant
natural weather
disasters, have their own generators as hack-up, and are
often "duplicated" in a huge network to provide a failsafe
recovery means for data
in the event of the power failure. The large ones such as
America Online
have huge membership (50 million as of July 2001 ).
Suppliers known as
Internet Service Providers ISPs) deliver general Internet
access. These
groups supply e-mail service, Web page hosting, FTP
access, and, of
course, external access to the Internet. Most companies
reaching a
certain size will opt for an Internet Service Provider to
support their
Internet access for a variety of reasons:
1. It's cheaper,
2. No need to deal with security of firewall issues
internally:
3. Limited system maintenance required (lowering operating
costs):
4. Screens junk mail:
5. Provides a hosting service for domain names (specific
to the company
requirements):
6. Provides support for the company's Internet users:
7. Can host e-mail services: and
8. Offers e-commerce services and storefronts on a turnkey
basis.As the Internet continues
to expand the range of services offered in
the marketplace, and the range of companies and their
activities are in
constant flux. Despite these changes, there is still a
continuous need
to have access to the internet. In the early stages,
leading companies
wanting to be on the internet purchased bandwidth and
internet access
from a telecom firm offering these services and then
hosted their own
system in-house, with a dedicated communications link to
the facility.
In early 1995. the market began to change. Many more firms
and
individuals wanted Internet access, but they either could
not afford it
or did not know how to do it themselves. (Setting up your
own system
in-house system requires significant knowledge of security
and firewall
systems to avoid unauthorized external access to internal
computer
systems.)
Consequently. two types of services emerged in the
marketplace.
Service Providers primary focused on the individual user,
who needed
to browse the Internet and have access to on-line
information services.
and a new breed of firms emerged known as internet Service
Providers.
This second group focused on providing e-mail, Web
hosting, FTP and
other services to small- and medium-sized businesses. This
allowed
firms to establish a Web presence and have relatively
high-speed
access (better than dial-up services) without having to
install dedicated
software arid computer systems to host their Websites or
manage
their Internet e-mail. Firms and services such as America
Online,
CompuServe. Prodigy, and MSN grew quickly and a "marketing
war"
was declared for users and their service fees. Today there
are still thousands of Internet Service Providers in the
United States alone, despite
more recent consolidation, and the market remains very
competitive.
However, the range of services offered continues to change
fast.
One decision many of you will have to
make early in your e-Business
strategy is how much of this is going to be brought
in-house. In some
cases, where security is critical, there are few choices.
We do not
expect banks or financial trading institutions to
outsource the hosting
of their systems any time soon. However. many other
businesses
are outsourcing many of their important internet-based
information
systems, and we expect this trend to continue.
In 1997 and 1998, another breed of firm
entered the market. These
dedicated high-end hosting providers provided some of the
same
services as the traditional ISPs, but with a twist. They
focused on
mission critical applications that needed a lot of network
bandwidth
and reliability - the sort that previously could only be
obtained by
individual companies setting up their own data centers and
hack-up
systems. Many applications such as voice and video needed
huge
network and computing resources. These firms became known
as
Application Service Providers. Now with a dramatically
improved and
mature technology infrastructure in place, many have
become very
successful.
This Application Service Provider
segment is now quite mature.
In these systems, the Service Provider hosts the
application on their
computer systems, providing support and maintenance. Other
features
include back-up and high performance features such as
mirroring.
replication, and access to on-demand bandwidth increases
at peak
times. Some of the application service providers also
offer e-business
features as part of their hosting offerings for companies
of all sizes.
The serious user will often opt to use a dedicated hosting
provider.
These companies provide the facilities that an
organization might have
to build for itself (such as the data center), shared with
others, along
with support for the applications that the company wants
them to host.
Many companies like this option, as it can save up-front
costs for the
internet connection and reduce maintenance costs over the
life of the
system. Companies such as NaviSite grew rapidly as this
segment of
the market expanded. More recently, large ISPs have
started to acquire
the ASP and hosting services to extend their offerings,
creating global
networks with services to support clients in many
locations. UUNet
is one such example, having acquired Digex in 2001 to
provide this
facility.
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