News

MCI WorldCom Enters Enterprise-Class Hosting Market

• By Scott Bekker
• November 16, 1998

"Two years ago companies were looking for simple shared or dedicated web sites. Now they are creating mission-critical applications to support on-line commerce or Intranet/Extranet communities," states Dave Foster, vice president and general manager of MCI WorldCom Advanced Networks' Hosting and E-Commerce unit. "These sites may involve multiple web servers, load balancing devices, separate database and commerce engines, and firewalls."

MCI WorldCom's Enterprise-Class Hosting offers integrated management of a company's hosting, networking, security, and custom application services to develop high-performance, reliable online business solutions. The new service includes: hosting configuration and network integration services; a designated project manager, a specially trained Enterprise Management Team (EMT) for effective issue resolution, 24 x 7 site monitoring and management; and custom applications supported on standard and non-standard platforms.

Enterprise Class Hosting can have multiple networking options including Internet, virtual private networks (VPNs), frame relay and private dial services. With MCI WorldCom's managed firewall service, InterManage, the hosting environment can be set up to secure part or all of a company's applications and data from public access. Enterprise Class Hosting is available immediately. Pricing for the service is based on the scope and complexity of the solution being implemented. A custom quote is generated for each solution.

Giving customers support for custom or non-standard hosting hardware, applications and databases, Professional Services adds advanced support services to MCI WorldCom's existing core hosting, commerce, enterprise class and co-location services. The three-tiered service -- Platform Edge, Application Edge and Database Edge -- provides technical support and service.

Professional Services' Platform Edge provides installation, configuration and management of unique or proprietary hardware and operating system configurations including Sun, Compaq and SGI. With Application Edge, MCI WorldCom provides installation and management of custom-developed, proprietary and non-standard applications including older, legacy systems to the latest, leading-edge technologies. Database Edge provides database administrator and management support for database solutions, based on customer-specific requirements.

Professional Services is available for a monthly retainer based on the number of hours of projected usage. Engineers can also receive specialized training to manage proprietary applications. --Brian Ploskina, Assistant Editor