November 8, 2007 -- (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) -- Managed services provider Rackspace Managed Hosting (rackspace.co.uk) recently commissioned an IDC white paper that has revealed that companies could be throwing money away by not considering the full impact of insourcing hosting for Web application and e-business infrastructures. The paper advises that most companies will see a benefit in terms of operational and capital expenditure by switching from in-house hosting to a managed hosting service.
The extent of the hidden costs of insourcing are under-realized by many companies and include landlord fees, building upkeep, live and backup power plant and on-site fuel storage, fiber connectivity, technical and security staff training, salaries and facilities and equipment depreciation, says IDC.
"Growing concerns over issues like rising energy prices and increasingly demanding service levels are driving up the costs that companies face in operating their own data center, with up to 20 percent of a company's total data center operational expenditure currently going to electricity," says James Eibisch, research director at IDC's European telecoms and networking group. "As these energy costs are now being transferred from facilities to IT departments, they will start to have a significant impact on IT budgets, so it is critical that businesses look at ways of increasing the efficiency of their data center operations."
The white paper, which can be viewed here, recommends evaluating a managed hosting service as outsourcing providers can often help reduce data center costs by securing better terms with infrastructure and energy suppliers, says Rackspace, as well as applying data center efficiency and server management best practices.
Last month, Netcraft named Rackspace as one of the top three most reliable Web hosts for September 2007.
