When we think about the Internet or global communications, many of us have no conception of how all that data gets to our e-mail inboxes or onto our PDAs. We groan about the speed, get frustrated when it goes down, and generally just take it all for granted.
If you are a multinational, however, the speed at which your corporate data and communications is transmitted, the quality and reliability of those networks is of paramount importance as telecommunications and data transfer costs real money, resources and productivity.
Despite the global reach of the Internet, South African companies that have target markets outside of southern Africa are sometimes disadvantaged by having their online applications hosted locally, simply because of the network latencies that result from the distances involved.
Deploying such systems closer to their intended markets can improve service levels, and for this reason Internet Solutions (IS) Hosting has developed a hosting solution in conjunction with London-based facilities partners, Telehouse Europe and IXEurope. This brings the total number of IS International Data Centres to seven - five in SA and two in the UK.
"The centre provides our customers and organisations with managed server-hosting solutions, located in hi-tech facilities and connected to a carrier-grade backbone in the UK," says Sean Nourse, general manager of IS Hosting Solutions.
"We chose Telehouse and IXEurope as our partners in the UK as they are considered to be Europe`s premier co-location providers. Telehouse provides customised IT hosting and management services, from secure facilities, primarily for telecommunication and Internet-related companies."
"The second IDC at IXEurope additionally offers our customers full disaster recovery (DR) facilities as they can now host in both centres through the high bandwidth interconnection that mirrors applications between the hosting providers. It also gives our customers a choice of which facility they choose to have as their primary hosting site."
IS Hosting customers who need a physical hosting service in the UK can choose either a service where the hardware is provided along with hosting space, support and monitoring, or a simple co-location solution where an empty rack is provided and the customer can lodge their servers in the rack. Set up and on-site support are provided by a London-based IT partner - SI Futures.
"The benefits for local customers are extensive," says Nourse. "They deal with one familiar point of contact for their local and international requirements; as with all hosting solutions, strict service-level agreements are pre-defined; the costs savings are substantial due to the shared model; customised solutions are available; the environment is managed and supported. Server monitoring and fault management ensure the applications are continuously available to Internet users."
Local customers using the UK IDCs include Santam and Discovery.
Share