With the rapidly growing popularity of Application Server Provision (ASP), where companies hire the software applications they need from vendors, leading Internet Service Provider (ISP) and network integrator, Data Pro, part of the JSE-listed Control Instruments group, has announced that revenue received from "server farming" over the last quarter has increased by 400%.
This was confirmed by Data Pro`s managing director, Douglas Reed, who said that, with the increase in popularity of ASP, more companies are also taking advantage of the next new-wave offering, called "Server Farming" - which sees companies hiring a third party to run their servers on super-powerful networks.
Reed said income from the company`s server farming activities are now making a noticeable impact on both revenues and bottomline.
"The outsourcing of servers is growing rapidly because corporate SA has matured significantly over the last 12 months and has realised that it makes sense, both from a performance and an economical viewpoint, to outsource this function to an expert."
Data Pro is now hosting a number of corporate`s web servers, as well as database servers, back-up servers, front-end and replication servers.
"Two years you had to be a top 200 company to be able to afford this outsourcing fee - or to make it worthwhile - now even the SMME (small macro and micro enterprises) market is dropping their servers on ISP`s networks. This trend," said Reed, "has markedly reduced the costs of running networks. Small companies no longer have to incur the costs of buying a switch, paying for a leased line, back-up devices, firewalls and USPs. In addition, because this function can now be outsourced cost-effectively, companies have been able to reduce their overheads as they do not need as many resources in the way of general IT skills, a cost which can make a significant impact on the overall payroll."
It is expected that as modern computing demands start to tax the coffers of many medium-sized corporates - and even some larger concerns - the `server farming` trend is going to grow "even more" in popularity.
"It makes sense," said Reed. "Companies like Data Pro have made the large investment that is required to run a super-network needed for the new millennium, as well as having the inhouse expertise to take over the remote running of a company`s server. In essence, all we are doing is taking concept of ASP one step further."
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