Interview:
Chris Hanks - President, HostedSolutions
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The
philosophy that drives HostedSolutions is simple.
"We want to be an inch wide and a mile deep," explains
Chris Hanks, president of the Cary, NC managed services provider.
In other words, focusing on what makes HostedSolutions successful,
and doing those things really well.
To keep meeting the needs of current and new customers,
HostedSolutions has just signed agreements that will substantially
increase the available bandwidth at its data center. HostIndex.com
talks with Chris Hanks about the company's growth to-date.
HostIndex.com: HostedSolutions has just signed
telecommunication services agreements with Sprint and Cable
& Wireless. The agreements provide for the installation of
dual OC3 pipes, each of which will provide 155 Mbps of capacity.
What does this announcement mean for your hosting customers
and your data center?
Chris Hanks: It means a lot. We're upping our bandwidth
tremendously. We currently have two redundant DS3 connections.
We're moving to two OC3 pipes. So obviously, we're moving
our bandwidth up to about 310 Mbps. With our current commitments,
we're only going to use about 100 - 150 Mbps, so we're going
to have an overabundance of accessible bandwidth to use with
our current customers as well as new customers. We don't want
to hinder our growth opportunities and we're making the investments
in the infrastructure.
It's the same approach as we took with our data center in
Cary, NC. We purchased a carrier-grade data center and made
the investment in infrastructure. We want to continue to do
that with the resources and the engineers we have in place.
We have about 12 full time engineers on staff 24X7. The OC3
pipes work right in line with that.
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HostIndex.com: How do you walk the fine line between growing
to meet the anticipated needs of new customers, and growing
too quickly?
Chris Hanks: That's a good question. What we've done is
looked at the growth projections for the next 6 months to
the next year, as well as the growth that we've sustained
over the past 5 months. It's been easy for us to forecast
our growth. It made us realize that in the near future, we
were going to have bottlenecks with some of the larger customers
that have approached us, and we can't have any hindrances.
We really participate in the SME market, but as we move
forward to the larger enterprise customers, we can't have
anything to hinder our ability to offer them solid managed
services. Bandwidth is one of the areas we wanted to make
sure we had covered.
HostIndex.com: Cable & Wireless and Sprint are respected
industry leaders. Does having those companies as providers
increase the confidence level of your hosting customers?
Chris Hanks: That's correct. They are key vendors for us
and they will continue to be, moving forward. There are also
others. We've forged a relationship with IBM--we're deploying
IBM servers--as well as Sun Microsystems.
HostIndex.com: Will having the fastest connection in the
Raleigh, Durham, Chapel Hill Triangle allow you to migrate
customers from other data centers in the area?
Chris Hanks: We hope so! Obviously, there is a little bit
of history here with the data center we acquired, and we want
to show these customers that my partner (Rich Lee) and I are
making the investment to carry them to the next level of data
center--the carrier grade data center.
HostIndex.com: Is it tough to overcome that history?
Chris Hanks: There's no question. As the name HostedSolutions reflects, we've changed the name and changed
the marketing philosophies, and we're being very aggressive
in this area. Again, we want to be very good at a few things,
so we are really focusing on the few areas that we think we
can succeed in--the managed services, the dedicated servers,
the colocation facilities--and we're putting our resources
toward those.
HostIndex.com: You recently signed a long-term contract
with FortuneCity.com, one of the world's top 20 Internet companies.
You are in final negotiations with several other companies
with high bandwidth requirements. What is attracting them
to HostedSolutions?
Chris Hanks: A number of things. It's kind of a new economy
today. When my partner and I approached this opportunity,
we wanted to come in as a low cost provider with an outstanding
facility--a carrier grade facility. We've done that via the
acquisition of a failing company, so the point of entry was
such that the price to our customers was extremely positive,
extremely aggressive. As well, my partner and I have experience
running data centers. This isn't the first time we've done
this. You have two proven managers as well as a number of
proven operators within our staff, an entry price that's second
to none and a facility that can match anybody's. To me, that's
an equation for success.
HostIndex.com: You are focusing on the SME market right
now. Do you want to move to the enterprise level customer?
Chris Hanks: That's the unique aspect of what we're doing.
Our focus is the SME market, but we can support the enterprise
level customer as FortuneCity shows you. It won't be our primary
focus, to be honest with you--the SME is. But when opportunities
arise, we'll continue to move forward with some of the larger
enterprise customers.
HostIndex.com: Thanks,
Chris! We appreciate the time you have taken to speak with
us today.
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