We now take a deeper look at the sea of services available in the managed services arena. How does one correlate these services in conjunction with the run-rate services provided by the Hosting and Internet Datacentre companies. Namely Shared Hosting, Co-Location, Managed Services and ASP. Well the fact is, it is not easy to draw the line of ownership and define the parameters of true managed services. To start with what are managed services? How many variants are there? What service level should one expect? Why should one out source? Where are these Internet Data Centres and who currently uses their services? These are just some of the questions one considers when seeking a solution which might fulfil and service a business need and process within an organisation.

A managed service provider (MSP) provides delivery and management of network-based services, applications, and equipment to enterprises, residences, or other service providers. Managed service providers can be hosting companies or access providers that offer services that can include fully outsourced network management arrangements, including advanced features like IP telephony, messaging and call centres, virtual private network (VPN's), managed firewalls, and monitoring/reporting of network servers. Most of these services can be performed from outside a company's internal network with a special emphasis placed on integration and certification of Internet security for applications and content. MSPs serve as outsourcing agents for companies, especially other service providers like ISPs, that don't have the resources to constantly upgrade or maintain faster and faster computer networks.

In addition to such basic communication service as leased line wide area network (WAN) and frame relay service, an MSP can manage and integrate a range of activities associated with enterprise networks. The range of outsourcing services includes basic transport and access, managed premises, web hosting, VPN, unified messaging, video networking, or other more sophisticated services.

Worldport, Genuity, and IBM are examples of some of the best-known companies that provide MSP services.

Managed service providers sometimes are referred to as management service providers, which also manage information technology services for companies. However, some industry experts say managed service providers provide a broader range of services than management service providers, which tend to limit themselves to monitoring services for servers, routers, firewalls, and other applications. Management service providers typically deliver infrastructure management services on a subscription basis, similar to the model used by application service providers (ASPs). They most commonly offer network-and application-monitoring services to e-businesses.

In our local market some of the majors from the United States have landed on our shores seeking to captivate the significant mix of corporates. One Tier 1 carrier, which recently announced its presence, is Genuity. This organisation formally known as BNN Corporation reputation precedes its self-boasting to be the first company to send the first email and pioneered the @ symbol for e-mail.

Working closely with industry leader Cisco Systems, Genuity now offers Irish enterprises a menu of managed security services, building on the successful solutions already available in the U.S.

Designed for medium to large businesses, Genuity VPN services fill the need for secure Internet communications and connectivity with reduced costs and complexity. Genuity VPN customers benefit from guaranteed performance backed by comprehensive service level agreements (SLAs), 24x7x365 customer support and an Internet communications infrastructure managed by a Tier 1 service provider. With multiple VPN solutions, Genuity can help enterprises tailor a security solution to best meet their needs for economical VPN connections between corporate headquarters, branches, mobile employees, customers and partners.

"Multinational firms can now source the same reliable and secure managed network services from a single vendor on a global basis," said Paul Slattery (Sales Manager - Ireland, Genuity). "Genuity works closely with leading technology partners to deliver Tier 1 VPNs based on unrivalled Internet security expertise and technology". The spectrum of services available is vast, and understanding the offerings themselves will be incremental to the identifying a potential provider. One should always be mindful that independent advice is available

Some of the other ground breaking and industry-leading services have been developed by leading companies namely; EMC Managed Storage solutions from Worldport and the Wolfe group offer management and monitoring of business critical operations crucial for stability and growth.

The business drivers within each organisation will vary although the skills shortage and the total cost of ownership will often be top of the list. One should not wonder why this type of services is becoming more prevalent in our cities but to accept that this is the way it is going to be moving forward for some time to come as outlined in the final section of this article. For the purpose of example I met with Sean Colclough CTO of Factor-e an organisation, which have demanded the highest level of service available and literally have had to outsource their business. " Factor-e" part of the Enba group of companies which provides the technology behind the "First e" Internet banks and in doing so out-sources to a number of partners. Factor-e's services include; out-sourcing, ASP (software for internet bank), software license and consulting. Being pioneers of the internet banking arena Factor-e decided on outsourcing to a fully managed datacentre in order to achieve first mover advantage. The IDC would have the scale to manage Factor-e's rapid growth in technology resourcing requirements.

They had an immediate need to service the architectural requirements, development activities and environments, operations and application support in conjunction with application stress testing. All of these challenging tasks pushed for a managed service provider. "Recruitment of staff was difficult as we needed off the shelf trained IT staff" said Colclough.

For various reasons Factor-e chose two service providers namely IBM for the hosting of the transactional site and Exodus for the management and hosting of the marketing web site. Some of these services availed of include the Managed firewall and diverse unlimited bandwidth for Internet connectivity. Outsourcing to the IDCs gave Colclough "One throat to choke" with a comprehensive SLA for the respective providers. In the main Colclough has established for his business that it is Better, Faster and Cheaper to outsource to a MSP.

The European IDC market is currently worth $5.4 billion, with the Global market reaching $55 billion by 2005. In 1999/2000 in excess of 30 Internet data centres had plans to establish a presence in Ireland. To date 15 internet data centre's have or will soon open for business in Ireland, most of which have located in the high tech business parks on the outskirts of Dublin. The remainder of the IDC's have either pulled out or scaled back their rollout plans due to several economic factors.

Europe has been dominated by co-location players. The current push is to build as many data centres as possible to increase market share quickly. US players are leading with this strategy, and they are also buying up regional full service providers. The trend which is presently emerging is that co-location only providers are migrating their services to become full service providers.

This trend is occurring due to a number of factors: -
· Skills shortages will drive enterprises to more external assistance.
· Hosting vendors will offer a lower total cost of ownership than enterprise using in-sourcing or co-location.
· The ever-increasing demand of applications on infrastructure.

One should establish a relationship with an independent company who has the relationships with the major players and is in a position to manage your service level agreement for and on behalf of you the customer. This will save you time that can be spent on your core competencies also sizing the correct solution for your needs is mission critical for the success of your managed service solution.