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Author: John Smith
The network operations center is the most misunderstood, misrepresented and marketed concept in the Web hosting industry.
It is the master control center consisting of infrastructure, equipment and the personnel necessary to provide business consumers with first-class Internet connectivity. All first-tier providers and major telecommunications companies build them to create the physical environment necessary to keep their business clients connected to high-speed Internet trunks 24 hours a day, seven days a week.
Network operations centers, or NOCs as they are commonly referred to, are expensive, world-class facilities. They are located in major metropolitan centers throughout the United States, Canada, and Europe and are designed to provide the widest range of security, reliability and speed. NOCs usually have multiple connections to high-speed, first-tier T1, T3, or OC-3 bandwidth connections. These connections are referred to as first-tier, because they are the raw pipes that contain the majority of Internet traffic.
NOCs are considered major junctions on the information highway, physically routing major amounts of Internet traffic for telecommunications and broadband providers. Because such facilities are pivotal to the Internet and the new economy in general, many are built to military specifications.
Most NOCs are custom designed to withstand any seismic or man-made disaster. All are equipped with smoke detection, fire suppression systems, motion sensors, secured access, video surveillance, redundant computer and power systems and multiple backup power generators. NOCs are complex, expensive undertakings that are primarily implemented by major enterprises and telecommunication companies. For this reason, you should be very wary if a second-tier hosting company claims that they operate their own center.
Most hosting companies will co-locate their equipment at a first-tier NOC owned by a larger firm, but few hosting companies actually operate a first-class network center. Many resellers and second-tier Web hosting companies have attempted to deceive consumers by claiming that they operate their own network facilities. This in most cases must be regarded for what it is: a false claim. Hosting companies and Internet Service Providers (ISPs) may operate their own intricate, in-house server farms, with customized servers and local loop connections to T1 or T3 lines. However, they cannot honestly claim that such a set up is evidence of their investment in a sophisticated network operations center.
Some hosting firms will claim that they have all the bells and whistles of a complex NOC, but savvy consumers will recognize that they are only co-locating their servers on the premises of an advanced broadband or telecommunications provider. For this reason, consumers must be very wary of small to medium-sized hosting firms that claim to make multi-million dollar investments in hosting infrastructure and equipment. All these companies are doing are locating computers at somebody else''s NOC, and in reality this is enough. When you pay for hosting, you not only pay for high quality and quantity bandwidth and redundant connections, but mostly for server maintenance expertise.
Hosting companies like to boast that they build network infrastructures, but in reality most firms simply purchase space in NOCs and maintain it for end-users who require hosting and e-commerce services for their small to medium sized enterprises. Many hosting companies also feature "meet-me rooms," which function like NOCs.
"Meet-me rooms" are facilities where telecommunication carriers and network service providers gather to cross-connect. They are purpose-built, shared resilient rooms within notable real estate locales where carriers can situate fiber racks, direct digital frequency synthesizers (DDFs) and other high-speed switching technology.
Data networks and hosting companies use meet-me rooms to make peer-to-peer interconnections without costly fees. Telephone companies also use meet-me room infrastructure to connect their voice networks to each other. Most rooms are located in the downtown cores of major metropolitan areas throughout Canada, the United States and Europe.
So make sure that you are not paying a premium simply because a hosting company claims that their NOC is superior. Ask you hosting company whether they actually run their own network operation facilities, or whether they simply co-locate their servers at another company''s NOC or in a meet-meet room.
Always make this inquiry if the Web host claims that it possesses superior network facilities in its advertising. Remember that determining whether your future hosting service is honest with you is very important. Ultimately you have to trust your hosting service, since you will be totally dependent upon it for your site income.
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Colocation Web Hosting Management Firm, VeriCenter, to be Acquired by SunGard
Houston, Texas - Managed hosting, colocation, and IT outsourcing services, VeriCenter, has reached a definitive agreement with information availability and business continuity services firm, SunGard Availability Services, for the company to acquire VeriCenter, Inc.
17.08.2007 posted by Administrator
The transaction, the terms of which were not disclosed, is not expected to have a material impact on SunGard`s financial results. The addition of VeriCenter increases SunGard`s economies of scale. It also broadens SunGard`s service offerings that combine dedicated and shared resources tailored to specific customer information availability needs. The VeriCenter resources complement SunGard`s business continuity and production hosting solutions that maximize the availability of networks, systems, data and applications.
Ted Gaasche, Chief Executive Officer of SunGard Availability Services explained, ``Companies have a decreasing tolerance for IT system downtime to avoid business disruptions, and budgetary pressures require them to look for vendors that can increase IT availability in a cost-effective way. The powerful blend of SunGard`s deep portfolio of information availability services, VeriCenter`s strong facility footprint and the world class expertise of our combined team will further enhance the ability to help protect customers` mission-critical people, systems and applications.``
Founded in 1999, VeriCenter serves more than 600 customers with complex requirements and significant uptime needs. VeriCenter hosts business applications, Websites, Software-as-a-Service, and messaging and collaboration applications from a nationwide network of seven data center facilities.
An acquisition by SunGard Availability Services will give VeriCenter customers access to a much broader range of business continuity, consulting and managed services to support their IT requirements.
Gray Hall, Chief Executive Officer of VeriCenter added, ``SunGard is a best-in-class business continuity services provider and it has a rapidly growing managed services business. More of VeriCenter`s customers seek a total availability solution from a single vendor, and combining our managed services delivery with SunGard Availability Services will help meet this need. Together, we can serve customers that seek business continuity, managed services or the blend of the two.``
Once the acquisition is finalized, SunGard Availability Services will serve more than 10,000 customers in nearly four million square feet of operations space predominantly in North America and Europe. Much of VeriCenter`s nearly 470,000 square feet of operations space remains untapped. SunGard Availability Services can customize the construction at each site to satisfy customer demands for managed services and business continuity to support customers.
With annual revenue exceeding $ 4 billion, SunGard provides software and processing solutions for financial services, higher education and the public sector. SunGard also helps information dependent enterprises of all types to ensure the continuity of their business. SunGard serves more than 25,000 customers in more than 50 countries, including the world`s 50 largest financial services companies.
SunGard Availability Services is a provider of information availability services, providing t nearly 10,000 clients in North America and Europe with access to business-critical information systems. With over three million square feet of hardened facilities, SunGard offers a complete range of information availability services for more than 30 technology platforms, from 48-hour disaster recovery hotsites to always-on, high-availability infrastructure, co-location and electronic vaulting services. SunGard also provides technology and systems management services for application and data center outsourcing, as well as business continuity consulting services and planning software.
2006 Business Highlights for VeriCenter Included:
* 26th consecutive quarter of sequential sales growth
* 22th straight EBITDA-positive quarter
* 169 new customers, including BodyCote, Energy Partners, First Data Systems, Jason’s Deli, Merrill Lynch Commodities, Peerless Manufacturing and Ziff-Davis.
* Introduction of Premier Services, a dedicated technical support offering for complex enterprise environments.
* Release of Version 4.0 of the VeriCenter Customer Portal, which presents real-time data to customers about their environments hosted at VeriCenter, and serves as a communication mechanism between VeriCenter and its customers.
* Completed expansion projects in VeriCenter`s Atlanta, Boston, Dallas, and Denver data center facilities, bringing the company`s current level of production raised floor space to 145,000 square feet.
* For the second consecutive year, VeriCenter was recognized in the Inc. 500 as one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States.
VeriCenter, Inc. is a managed services, application hosting and IT infrastructure outsourcing company for large and mid-market enterprises. From its nationwide network of seven premier data center facilities, VeriCenter endeavors to provide a comprehensive range of managed services including management of servers, storage, backups, network, databases, security and data centers to more than 600 business customers in a broad range of industries. In addition to providing cost savings through economies of scale, VeriCenter delivers value to its customers by providing application availability, reliability and scalability, combined with a flexible and service-oriented culture, and by continuously adapting services to incorporate advances in infrastructure technology such as virtualization and utility computing solutions. In both 2005 and 2006, VeriCenter was recognized in the Inc. 500 as one of the fastest-growing companies in the United States.
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