Reportedly the largest automotive website in Australia, Carsguide currently carries more than 80,000 classified listings from dealers, private sellers and classified ads from around the country and is a subsidiary of News Limited, a Rupert Murdoch company.

Under the deal, Macquarie Hosting says it will provide a high-availability, managed hosting solution comprised of both dedicated and enterprise virtual servers to host Carsguide's recently upgraded website and applications.

The hosting provider says it was selected, following a competitive assessment of various web hosts, for its proven experience with digital media companies as well as its specialization in the design and implementation of complex managed-virtualized hosting environments.

This was of particular interest to Carsguide because in March it implemented new data-indexing software to improve search functionality for customers and deliver more targeted opportunities for marketers. In line with this upgrade, Carsguide says it needed to improve the scalability of its site to cope with anticipated increases in both search volume and time on site.

"Macquarie Hosting quickly understood our specific business needs and provided scalable solutions with a rapid provisioning cycle," says Marcus Verrall, head of technology for Carsguide. "The team's deep understanding of the challenges associated with enterprise virtualized servers was a key factor in our decision to partner with Macquarie Hosting. The clear engagement and provisioning process gave us confidence that they can meet our infrastructure needs both now and in the future."

Previously, Carsguide's website and applications were hosted partly in-house and partly with an undisclosed external third-party on dedicated servers.

The most recent Macquarie Hosting partnership we reported on was in January when the Australian hosting provider signed a three-year deal with Habbo, a teen social networking site believed to be serving more than 2.9 million registered users.

Last month, Macquarie Telecom announced it has expanded its business-grade ADSL 2+ network to more than 250 exchanges across Australia.