NETWORK WORLD NEWSLETTER: JEB BOLDING on
APPLICATION SERVICE PROVIDERS
01/30/02
Today's focus: How much is too much?

Dear Wincenty Kaminski,

In this issue:

* Inflow finds that smaller is better
* Links related to ASPs
* Featured reader resource

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Today's focus: How much is too much?

By Jeb Bolding

In October I talked about Relera, which at that time, announced
that it was getting out of the managed-services business.
Before it made the announcement I visited its Internet data
center in Denver and what comes to my mind when I think about
the discussion I had with its CEO, and my impression of the
facilities is one word: scale.

Everything was about having the best partners, the biggest data
center, massive systems redundancy rates, etc. No doubt, there
is a place for that corporate mentality, and Relera's focus on
scale should be a comfort to many enterprise companies. Relera
may have just been unfortunate with its timing in the market
and it may yet be successful with its focus.

As a counterpoint, yesterday I visited another local Internet
data center provider, Inflow. Like Relera, Inflow is
headquartered in Denver, and like Relera, it is focused at
second-tier cities such as Nashville and Minneapolis, though it
does have some first-tier city locations.

The similarities, in my opinion, end there. Inflow's corporate
esprit de corps seems to revolve around "smaller is better."

As an example, the data centers are smaller, somewhere between
20,000 and 30,000 square feet. Not only does this bring data
center profitability sooner based upon allocated space, but it
also gives, in the words of Inflow executives, a more personal
touch to the relationship between the data-center managers and
Inflow's customers.

Further to this point, instead of effectively building its own
substations, Inflow ensures that each of its data centers
(there are three in Denver) are located on different power
grids. While this may not put you in complete control over your
own destiny, it's a reasonable, and cost-efficient solution
based upon the statistical likelihood of a disaster.

While Inflow's costs are considerably less, the features of its
facilities do not appear to be diminished.

All data centers are mirror images of one another (other than
the square footage), so that a customer walking into a
Nashville facility will be just as at home in a Denver center.

All the services, from simple co-location, to managed security
services and monitoring, are replicated similarly across the
various locations.

And your single operational account representative is your
focal service point regardless of how many Inflow data centers
you're in. Management is fully integrated between the data
centers so that your customer representative does not have to
be local to your issues in order to solve them.

No doubt, there is a place in the business world for Relera and
Inflow. Inflow may have just lucked out that its focus on costs
will help the company better weather a long downturn.

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To contact Jeb Bolding:

Jeb Bolding is senior consultant with Enterprise Management
Associates in Boulder, Colo., an analyst and market research
firm focusing exclusively on enterprise management. Bolding has
10 years of experience in the network systems industry, most
recently with eCollege.com, an ASP for higher education, where
he was director of product development. He can be reached at
mailto:jbolding@enterprisemanagement.com.
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RELATED EDITORIAL LINKS

Relera pulls out of MSP market
Network World ASP Newsletter, 10/15/01
http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/asp/2001/01052526.html

EDS exploits shifts in hosting arena
Network World, 01/28/02
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2002/128045_01-28-2002.html

AT&T spells out international strategy
Network World, 01/28/02
http://www.nwfusion.com/news/2002/129527_01-28-2002.html

Breaking ASP news from Network World, updated daily:
http://www.nwfusion.com/topics/asp.html

Archive of the ASP newsletter:
http://www.nwfusion.com/newsletters/asp/index.html
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FEATURED READER RESOURCE

Network World Fusion's The Edge site

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advances in service-provider networks that are shaking up the
old telecom order. In classic Network World fashion, we focus
on the hardware, software and services coming to market - but
this time from the vendors targeting legacy carriers, new
alternative local carriers, ISPs and application service
providers. http://www.nwfusion.com/edge/index.html
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