ASPs: A Little Precaution Goes A Long Way

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June 27, 2000 (12:00 AM EDT)

By Jennifer Hagendorf Follett ,

NEW YORK -- ASPs at PC Expo have a few words of advice for potential customers: backup, backup, backup.

The best way to ensure an ASP delivers the level of service businesses demand is to make sure there are alternate routes or backup plans to guarantee access even in the face of power failure, connectivity failure, or acts of nature, executives said.

"Certain things are just going to be out of your control, so you want to make sure your ASP has peering relationships with alternate carriers," said Michael Krieger, senior vice president of corporate development at FutureLink (stock: FTRL).

ASP customers can do their part by having alternate paths to Internet connectivity, he said.

"We always advise our customers that use DSL to have a dial-up backup," says Krieger.

ASPs also advise customers to make sure their ASP of choice has redundant power sources and generators to provide electricity during outages. Even redundant cooling systems are a must to make sure servers in data centers don't get too hot and malfunction.

An important function that often goes overlooked is the role of the ASP to educate its customers on policies and procedures for security, said Pascal Aguirre, vice president of Renaissance Worldwide Strategy, a consulting firm based in Boston.

"The most significant area of violation is most ASPs are providing focus on physical security levels, but the human level is where a lot of the breeches take place," said Aguirre. "You have to have in-house, robust procedures, and ASPs should help you identify and develop them."