February 27, 2001 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- In response to exploding regional demand for high-speed, reliable and scaleable Web hosting services, AT&T announced it has opened an Internet data center to serve the Atlanta metropolitan area and the Southeast region. The facility provides end-to-end Web hosting services that are essential for enterprise customers, content providers and dot-coms.
The new 250,000 square-foot facilities are located just outside downtown Atlanta in Lithia Springs, Ga. It brings AT&T's total number of Internet data centers to 16, providing businesses with 1.5 million square feet of conditioned Web hosting space worldwide. AT&T data centers connect to AT&T's IP coast-to-coast OC-192 IP backbone and its IP-enabled, high-speed private data networks. This allows customers to seamlessly connect their public Web sites with their back office operations.
AT&T is continuing on its path to grow to 2 million square feet of Web hosting capacity and to add eight new centers in 2001, bringing the total number of AT&T Internet data centers to 21 by year-end. Two other AT&T Internet Data Centers, located in the Washington, D.C., and Dallas metropolitan areas, also recently opened for business.
"The demand for Web hosting services is booming in Atlanta and the Southeast, as it is nationwide," said Raymond M. Johnson, sales center vice president for AT&T Business Services. "More and more companies realize they have to adapt to the new business models driven by the Internet if they are to survive. The AT&T Web hosting services will help businesses in Atlanta and across the Southeast navigate these transitions successfully and economically."
Customers in Atlanta and the Southeast will have access to AT&T's full portfolio of managed hosting services, including application management, database management, hardware and operating system management, intelligent content distribution service, high availability data and computing services, network and bandwidth management, storage services, managed security and firewall services, and professional services.
AT&T will host an impressive array of networked economy businesses in the Atlanta center, including Atomic Software of Alpharetta and Greenway Medical Technologies of Carrollton, two of the first companies to contract for AT&T's dedicated hosting services in the center.
Atomic Software is a developer and marketer of e-payment gateway services and software products. Its customers include wireless mobile merchants, Internet service providers and web-based merchants, as well as traditional retail, fast food, restaurant, practice management, and mail/phone order firms. Atomic's services and software products perform credit card authorizations, debit card authorizations, check verification and guarantee services, purchase card authorizations, stored value/gift card transactions and electronic settlement (deposit) for merchants. Its payment services are marketed as e-comPort for wireless processing and dialup, and iAuthorizer for Internet merchants.
"Electronic commerce requires data security, speed and reliability above all," said Thomas McCole, president of Atomic Software. "AT&T's web-hosting service gives us direct access to a powerful IP backbone that provides all of these qualities to our financial, retail, and government clients."
Greenway Medical Technologies is a software and services provider focused on delivering a physician-centric application that integrates a physician practice's clinical, financial and administrative processes.
Greenway's solution, called PrimePractice, is a Web Browser-based Ambulatory software suite that includes Integrated Practice Management, Computer-based Patient Record (CPR) and Managed Care solutions. By integrating clinical, financial and administrative functions, Greenway enables physicians and practice managers to better serve their patients, more efficiently manage their practice and increase practice profitability.
"Offering PrimePractice as an application service provider solution is very strategic to our overall business objectives," said Tommy Green, CEO of Greenway Medical. "However, due to the sensitivity of the information that our system manages - personal health information - this deployment approach will be more challenging than within other industries. Therefore, we believe our Internet data center partner has to be highly credible within the industry and has to be flexible in its approach to partnerships. That's where AT&T comes in. We selected AT&T to host our Internet applications because they share our high standards and commitment to providing secured data access and superior service to customers."
