The financial collapse of Web hosting firm Exodus Communications
has prompted consumer electronics giant Philips to speed up the
relocation of its Internet data centre to an in-house
facility.
The relocation project, completed last month, is the first in a
series of similar moves that Amsterdam-based Philips plans to make
globally in an effort to gain greater control of its IT equipment
and networks.
Philips will continue to outsource application management when it
makes sense to do so but will keep the equipment in its own data
centres.
A growing number of companies are looking for service providers to
help them manage systems on their premises, according to Laurie
McCabe, an analyst at Summit Strategies in Boston, US. In some
cases, firms hope to better leverage their data centre investments
through such arrangements, McCabe said. Others want greater control
over their IT assets than when they outsource.
Plans to move Philips' Internet data centre back in-house started
last July as concern grew about the financial viability of Exodus.
Exodus hosted more than 350 Web sites for Philips at a facility in
New Jersey. Originally, the plan was to find a suitable building
within a 100-mile radius of the Exodus facility and migrate
everything over by the end of March 2002.
But the schedule was advanced when Exodus filed for Chapter 11
protective bankruptcy last September, a move that was followed by a
deal to sell its assets to Cable & Wireless.
The task was complicated by the 11 September attacks and the demand
for office space and telecommunications services from companies
that had previously had space in the World Trade Center.
Philips finally decided to move into one of its own facilities in
New Jersey, a building that originally had been a data centre but
had been switched to office use. The facility was quickly converted
back into a full-fledged data centre with T1 and OC3 lines for
Internet connectivity and backup power capabilities.
Philips' main hardware vendors, Dell and Sun, helped move systems
from the Exodus facility to its new data centre.
Philips will soon set up similar data centres in Europe and Asia
and link all three in a high-availability configuration.