Sprint, which has been hosting for about 18 months, scored well because of a hosting model that essentially locks customers out of hosting centers while veiling them in many of the same policies and practices it uses for its internal network security. What is perhaps most fascinating about these two companies rising to the top is the contrast in their staffing. The irony is that Digex claims about 600 Web sites, compared to about 140 at Sprint. Still, it's a tall order to measure dedicated resources accurately, especially since employees like Sprint's may serve dual purposes. And though managed-security services, such as firewalls, can benefit hosting customers, it's rare for these services to be tightly integrated with hosting services at large network providers.
Corporate inertia is simply too great.
It lets customers view administrative audit trails for their own machines and opens up its written security policies on a nondisclosure basis. Without this type of disclosure, it's very difficult to assess the security of a hosting provider. Sprint takes a very different approach. It doesn't allow customers to conduct their own audits or evaluations or view Sprint's security policies. Sprint obviously decided to take this approach because the security for its own network is closely tied into its hosting security model.