Vogue Publisher Signs Web Hosting Deal With iXguardian Conde [...]

📅 May 17, 2001 - Lifestyle magazine publisher, Conde Nast, has chosen web-hosting specialist, iXguardian, to host the online versions of its ten titles, including Vogue, GQ, Glamour and Conde Nast Traveller. The move is part of Conde Nast's strategy of targeting its content at the growing number of PC and Personal Digital Assistant (PDA) users who are looking fortimely and convenient access to news and features on style and fashion.
"PDA and mobile PC users fall within our reader profile and are anattractive high income target for advertisers so we're keen to reach them.iXguardian will let us do this effectively through its high bandwidth hostingcapabilities, allowing us to scale up capacity quickly in response toincreases in site traffic," Andrew Rippon, Online Technical Director of CondeNast explains.
"We're also keen to use the web to broadcast video material such asfashion shows and travel guides, and iXguardian will make this possiblethrough its soon to be introduced support for high volume web streamingtechnology," Rippon adds.
iXguardian, which provides a comprehensive range of managed web hostingservices from Europe's largest web hosting centre near Heathrow, was alsochosen because of its commitment to minimizing web site down time. Thecompany is able to draw on a long track record of planning against systemsdowntime via its parent company, high availability IT solutions specialist,Guardian iT plc.
One of the elements that attracted Conde Nast was iXguardian's built-inn+n resilience which guards against performance dips and downtime caused byany failure in the hosting centre's core infrastructure, includingconnectivity, power and cooling. This is achieved through effective planningand investment in contingency facilities across the board as Garry Growns,Managing Director of iXguardian, explains:
"Most hosting companies settle for n+1 resilience -- in other words theywill put in place one extra contingency facility for areas such as power andconnectivity. But 'Murphy's law' says your single contingency will alwaysfail and create a window of vulnerability when your main facility isundergoing maintenance or has already gone down. So we always have an equalnumber of contingencies in reserve to the main systems, in other words n+nresilience -- that coupled with our superior contractual guarantee deliverscrucial peace of mind for customers."
Another reason for iXguardian winning the Conde Nast contract was itsability to protect against performance problems and to deliver content morequickly by hosting its customers' web sites and applications over a range ofleading global Internet Protocol (IP) networks. If one supplier isexperiencing problems on its networks then applications are automaticallyre-routed via another using sophisticated carrier optimization technology.
iXguardian is building partnerships with specialist companies, includingother subsidiaries of the Guardian iT group, to deliver services for websitesecurity, content distribution, data management and disaster recovery.
"Customers such as Conde Nast, who are experiencing dramatic growth anddemand for their online content, need business solutions that can help them to surge and scale their demand. Our range of managed services enables customers to deal with these unpredictable surges in demand and the opportunity to focus their internal resources and personnel on core business priorities," concludes Garry Growns.