Hosting is the new way of managing your computing needs. It is the alternative to doing it yourself or completely outsourcing, both of which can be expensive and risky options for a company. Hosting is an attractive alternative because it has lower costs and doesn't involve a high initial capital investment incurred by doing it yourself, whilst also giving greater control and flexibility than completely outsourcing operations.

Alternatives to Managing IT Systems and Computing

Do-it-Yourself:

Do-it-yourself is an approach to managing IT systems where a business retains complete ownership and responsibility for maintenance and support. Companies may choose to house their IT systems in their own facilities or may use a co-location vendor for data centre space and network access. The company and their own IT staff is responsible for managing their solution 24/7.

Outsourcing:

Businesses may also choose to outsource their IT systems and computing operations. Outsourcers typically provide an end-to-end, custom solution for their customers. The outsourcer also assumes responsibility for management of a customer's IT systems, computing operations, and employees.

Hosting:

Hosting providers offer services to support IT systems and computing ranging from simple to very complex. The equipment required (servers, routers, switches, firewalls, load balancers, cabinets, software, wiring, etc.) to deliver their services is typically purchased and managed by the hosting providers, therefore they take the upfront risk and capital outlay. The Hosting provider is set up for and experienced in, the delivery of hosting solutions with expert support staff available to resolve issues as quickly as possible. Customers also benefit from the often large network capabilities of hosting providers, as well as the economies of scale of their infrastructure, with the costs spread across their client base e.g. back up and storage infrastructures, making it a more affordable option.

Hosting saves a company upfront investment and the risk associated of tying up capital into infrastructure. It also offers a flexible and scalable solution to 'pay as you grow' and as such, companies can preserve their cash for more revenue generating activities. Hosting enables a company to tap into a source of experts 24/7, something which is difficult to replicate in-house without significant investment.

Rackspace® offers a full suite of hosting services, including dedicated hosting, managed hosting, email hosting and cloud hosting as well as emerging services such as virtualisation. Rackspace is also a financially stable and reliable provider with 10 years experience in the hosting industry. With over 1500 experts supporting our customer base 24/7, plus Fanatical Support, our award winning customer service, we provide a dependable alternative to struggling to do it yourself.