To this end, customers either have the SRM tools they need or they don't. The reports allow customers to pinpoint the files causing the growth and also to select files that could be deleted. Vittoria says he runs the report free as a courtesy to customers. He says that some customers may not be aware of third-party products such as DiskAdvisor. Unlike traditional Web hosting services, Rackspace, a startup in San Antonio, Texas, enables mostly small and midsize organizations to rent custom-built and configured Linux servers.
Customers manage their servers and storage, at least for now.
On the other hand, Yoo says that when a server gets to about 150GB, some customers become concerned about disk crashes and losing data. Yoo says that Rackspace plans to move to brandname hardware offering better SRM capabilities. Exodus Communications Inc. Within less than three years, Exodus, based in Santa Clara, Calif., has become the largest provider of worldwide e-business data centers with the security of Fort Knox. Organizations such as eBay, Merrill Lynch, and Microsoft host their servers at one of the 30 worldwide Exodus data centers.