DO-IT-YOURSELF
You host the Web site yourself, relying purely on in-house
resources except for the external connectivity.
PROS:
* No service costs to pay
* You have total control over the application
CONS:
* Can be difficult and expensive to maintain the required
expertise
* You may not have an ideal physical environment
* Coping with future increase in demand may be painful.
YANILLA CO-LOCATION
Hosting company provides the physical space and associated
environmental services, including building access security, for
your Web server and the connectivity to the Internet. However,
the server is yours and you manage everything else to do with
it, including the hardware, operating system and application.
PROS:
* Far cheaper than full-blown dedicated hosting, while avoiding
all the environmental and connectivity issues of in-house hosting
CONS:
* You stilt need the resources to manage the Web server itself
including operating system and application.
CO-MANAGED
This is a half-way house, in which you still look after the
application, but now the hosting company owns and administers
the server and the operating system, as well as providing all
the basic co-location facilities. This represents a split in
responsibility between the IT platform and the application
running on it.
PROS:
* It off-loads all responsibility for hardware and operating
system, allowing you to focus on the application
* Cheaper than full dedicated hosting
CONS:
* Considerably more expensive than co-location
* You still have to look after the application, which is often
the main source of reliability problems.
DEDICATED HOSTING
Here the hosting company looks after everything to do with the
IT of your Web site, including the application and even
processing-electronic payments.
PROS:
* It off-loads all responsibility for IT, allowing you to focus
purely on products and customers
CONS:
* Very expensive
* You will stilt deal with customers and products
* You may stilt have to grapple with complex integration issues
involving in-house systems.
FULL-BLOWN PROCESS OUTSOURCING
This is dedicated hosting with the additional component of
managing processes such as CRM and product pricing, in effect
outsourcing the whale e-commerce operation, concentrating on the
products or services you provide but leaving the online
distribution to the service provider.
PROS:
* It off-loads some of the integration issues (or all of them
if you resort to total outsourcing of IT)
* Fastest route to new online markets
CONS
* Adds even more to the cost
* Extends dependence on hosting provider beyond IT provision
into customer relationship management, which may be beyond its
core competence.
Case study: Warner Brothers International Theatre (WBIT)
WBIT. like some other national cinema chains. recently
established a Web site supporting online ticket sales. With
rivals moving online, WBIT decided it needed to act quickly,
setting itself a tight four-month deadline. The business plan
for a Web presence coupled with online ticket sales was only
completed in February 2000. However, the company wanted to go
live in time for the launch in July of the year's biggest movie.
Star Wars, Episode One -- The Phantom Menace.
According to James Scott, WBIT project director, this tight
deadline narrowed the field of contenders significantly and
meant that only a seasoned hosting provider could be considered.
BT was chosen largely on the strength of its existing
relationship with WBIT for telecoms services. The deadline was
met, and the site quickly proved popular, with seven million
hits in a month shortly after going live.
This is an example of dedicated hosting, in which the provider
looks after all IT issues relating to provision and operation of
the Web site. But it is not full-blown outsourcing, because WBIT
looks after the actual ticketing systems within each local
cinema.
The site is managed on BT's own server farm in Milton Keynes
and this interacts with WBIT's network connecting the local
cinemas. When a customer checks times of films and orders a
ticket, the enquiry runs through the BT server farm to WBIT's
central system in its London headquarters and is then routed to
the requested local cinema. The ticket order is then processed
in the local cinema's system and a message confirming -- or if
fully booked denying -- the purchase is sent back via the same
route.
Submitted by HostingChecker.com - for help on all your hosting
needs.
http://www.hostingchecker.com
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