Outsourcing /

Digex to leverage link to WorldCom

New business continuity services rely on embattled majority owner's high-speed network.

By Jennifer Mears
Network World, 07/01/02

LAUREL, MD. - Managed hosting provider Digex is making a real push to capitalize on its WorldCom relationship, linking its data centers with WorldCom's high-speed network and introducing business continuity services designed to keep critical applications up and available.

The news comes amid WorldCom's worsening financial scandal and about a year after WorldCom purchased a majority stake in Digex. The Digex board also recently ousted CEO Mark Shull and replaced him with George Kerns, former senior vice president of operations.

Analysts say the CEO move is a good one because while Shull kept Digex on an even keel, the company needed someone to capitalize on the year-old relationship with WorldCom and expand the company's capabilities while reining in costs.

"I think the change at the top indicates what Digex's priorities are going forward," says Melanie Posey, an analyst with IDC. "What they're going to do is basically work on what they can change right now, which is their own cost structure, since they really can't do much about the state of the economy or making businesses buy [services]."

While Kerns acknowledges that the economy is tough and cost savings are a priority - more staff cuts are possible - he stresses that Digex will not wait for the economy to improve. The company is partnering with systems integrators such as KPMG Consulting, Deloitte & Touche and Accenture to provide the managed infrastructure for enterprise application deployments, opening its data centers to a wider variety of hardware and software systems, along with focusing on providing managed services, rather than isolated hosting "products."

Digex has grouped its services into three sets: E-Enablement, for midmarket companies looking for basic support services; Commerce, for companies looking for transaction-oriented capabilities; and Enterprise IT, a shift for Digex as it moves into supporting critical enterprise applications.

"We have traditionally viewed the world from a product standpoint," Kerns says. "We basically have taken different technologies that we believed were very important for doing hosting on the Internet, put some core processes around those, provided 24-7 high-level support and developed what I would call a pretty robust product catalog."

The shift that customers will see, he says, is that Digex now will focus more on providing services that address specific needs.

For example, the business continuity services, called SmartContinuity, include a menu of seven disaster-recovery services that are designed to meet specific business needs, from the very simple to the very complex. The services range from running a static Web server that will handle traffic if the primary site goes down, to mirroring the primary site in a different geographic location.

"Digex has done a great job finding out what the market needs and bringing a solution that consists of those needs in multiple categories," says Andy Schroepfer, president of Tier 1 Research.

The services stand out in the market because they combine Digex's hosting expertise with WorldCom's network capabilities. Schroepfer says it's the WorldCom network that enables these services by providing the infrastructure for transaction load balancing and database synchronization at high speeds.

Other telecom companies that provide hosting could offer similar services, but "Digex is the first to put a great wrapper around this whole thing to help enterprises figure out what it is they can look at as far as options, instead of just saying, 'You need to do disaster recovery,'" Schroepfer says.

Steve Keifer, senior manager of product development and strategy at Digex, says the company is offering businesses a more economical solution by providing dedicated circuits at a reasonable price, as well as hosting expertise to manage databases and applications. Pricing was not disclosed.

Businesses can expect to see Digex continue to use the WorldCom network to roll out new services, Kerns says. Companies looking to consolidate server deployments will have an easier time moving into Digex facilities because the company will support HP-UX and IBM AIX operating systems, and a growing list of hardware deployments. Digex will continue to support Compaq and Sun hardware, and Microsoft and Sun software. Digex added support for Linux earlier this year.

Buying business continuity
Digex is linking its data centers with WorldCom’s high-speed network and giving customers a range of business continuity offerings.

Rapid recovery	If a server fails, Digex will rebuild a secondary server while restoring client’s production site.
Corporate presence	If the primary site is unavailable, Digex will redirect traffic to an alternate site.
Dynamic failover	Digex manages an active failover database that will continue transaction processing if the primary server fails.
Standby site	Digex manages an Oracle standby site in a different geographic location that can pick up transaction processing in the event of a production failure.
Active standby site	Customer’s production site is split between multiple Digex data centers.
Development/ recovery site bundle	Digex will host a customer’s development site, which also can be used as a disaster-recovery site.