Day two of ISPCON Spring 2007 began with back-to-back sessions from Web hosting provider Verio. In the first, Bill Davis, senior director of virtual technology for Verio looked at the opportunities behind “Exploiting The Hottest
Virtualization Trends” in the industry today.
Perhaps it had something to do with the unfortunate circumstances of being the first session of the day, but the few in attendance seemed nearly sedated throughout the presentation. Still, Davis trekked on, offering a brief history of virtualization and its various forms of services, until highlighting the many dedicated-like features of a VPS that contribute to creating some solid business growth opportunities for ISPs and Web hosts.
With the drastically changing SMB landscape, Davis says that virtualization can potentially offer the right service for customers who are demanding solutions, but only when they are coupled with the right partner.
Next up was Verio’s vendor-sponsored session, which switched topics from virtualization to managed hosting. In the session, entitled “The Managed Hosting Challenge!”, Verio’s managed private server product manager Andrea Lewis explained the numerous features of Verio’s 360 Degree managed servers, offered on both Linux and FreeBSD platforms.
Using a trivia game that featured questions relating to Verio’s managed private server solution, Lewis kept the crowd engaged and informed.
The day concluded with the “Hosted Value-Added Services for 2007 and Beyond” session, which was by far the most well-attended session this week. Speaker Mike Cassidy, managing partner for href=”http://www.isp-market.com”>ISP-Market, delved into the many lucrative opportunities in hosted services for businesses and clients. Cassidy highlighted the advantages of a handful of value-added services, including software as a service, storage, security/surveillance, advertising, connected home networking, or as he playfully referred to it as “creating the Jetsons home” and VoiP, which he says is “really starting to heat up”. He also stressed that when choosing new value-added services, ISPs should consider the possible impact the offering could have on the customers. If the ISP has a firm grasp of their customer base and what their needs are, as well as how they can effectively communicate those value-added services to them, they will undoubtedly succeed, he says. Tomorrow, I’ll take a look at what’s going on the exhibition floor, as well as sessions from the final day of the conference. By Justin Lee
