Unfortunately, the ASP has little control on how the traffic is delivered downstream. ASPs should provide redundant physical links that run from different sides of the building. However, the actual available bandwidth is a function of how many LANs are connected to the WAN at the hosting location, how many other servers are located at that site, and the overall amount of server traffic at the hosting site. Wishful Thinking Web application hosting promises corporate sites large reductions in server and software capital expenditures. Hosting also offers an opportunity to reduce IT staffing and the associated overhead required to deploy and manage systems, not to mention a way out of the problem of hiring IT personnel in an extremely tight labor market.
Businesses are thus free to focus on their core competence.
However, while all of this sounds very appealing, do not base your decision about whether to go with a particular hosted solution solely on a strong business model, intuitive reasoning, and wishful thinking. The technical aspects to successful application hosting are not trivial. Focus first on how a hosted solution can really work, and then determine whether you should try it. No reproduction without permission Intelligent Enterprise editors are not responsible for content appearing in Intelligent Enterprise Asia, a publication produced independently for the Asian market.