Exodus bolsters managed services

SANTA CLARA - Exodus is expanding its managed services offerings with on-site multivendor hardware and operating system support that it will deliver in partnership with Amdahl. The Premium Care Service, unveiled last week and available immediately in Exodus' North American data centers, provides a 30-minute response time to problems and a guarantee that service is restored within four hours of trouble.

The service eliminates the need for enterprise customers to contract with multiple maintenance organizations, says Chris Richter, director of product marketing at Exodus. Richter says at times Exodus engineers are unauthorized to fix specific hardware problems and companies have to bring in manufacturer-authorized technical personnel. The Premium Care Service eliminates that hassle, he says.

"Exodus customers will now have a hardware maintenance service that is provided by a single source, as opposed to having to buy the maintenance service from many different sources covering all the different equipment in their cages," he says. "We just found it would be a lot easier if the customer had one point of contact, one phone number and one contract."

The Premium Care Service draws on Amdahl's 30 years of expertise in providing infrastructure services and products. Late last year, the Tokyo Fujitsu subsidiary pulled out of the mainframe business to focus on managed services and last month unveiled InfraCare, its round-the-clock managed IT infrastructure support.

Amdahl uses the resources of Fujitsu and other Fujitsu subsidiaries to offer the global service, says Larry Fillmer, president of Amdahl IT Services. He says Amdahl can service the majority of best-of-breed vendors, such as Sun, Compaq and Intel-based servers.

Customers who subscribe to the Premium Care Service will have a single point of contact for multivendor diagnosis and repair by telephone or through the Web. The myExodus Web portal will give users access to inventory data, service history and trouble-ticket status.

In addition, customers will have access to on-site certified engineers, dedicated service delivery managers, on-site spare hardware and formal escalation procedures.

Richter says customers contract for the Premium Care Service as they would for any of Exodus' managed services and receive a service-level agreement with Exodus. Richter would not divulge specific costs but says the price will vary depending on the equipment covered.

The Premium Care Service is expected to be available in Exodus data centers in Europe by late summer and in Asian-Pacific data centers by the fall, Richter says.

Exodus: www.exodus.com; Amdahl: www.amdahl.com

Contact Senior Writer Jennifer Mears

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