Savvis Communications is on the move

Savvis is probably best known in Internet circles as one of the primary companies behind the private network access point (NAP) idea. However, it wants to be known for more.

In the last couple of years Savvis has been one of the biggest proponents of establishing private NAPs where ISPs could exchange traffic outside of the overly congested public NAPs. The company has several sites across the country where ISPs that have significant networks, but not necessarily national networks, in place can exchange traffic with other ISPs.

Once Savvis successfully sold the private NAP idea to the ISP community, it didn't seem to know where to go. Savvis has a national backbone that's used to sell wholesale capacity to other ISPs. However, it does have some services geared toward business users ... though probably not enough.

In December Clyde Heintzelman came on board as Savvis' new CEO. Heintzelman, a former Bell Atlantic executive, most recently was the president and chief operating officer at Digex Communications. He was brought on board to develop "high-performance Internet access solutions with new service offerings" for the company's business and ISP customers.

One week later, Savvis announced its first managed firewall service. Teaming with Checkpoint in Dec. 1998 Savvis announced a service that almost every other ISP was already offering. At least it was recognizing that it had some catching up to do.

Check out the ISP newsletter later in the week for more information on Savvis.

Denise Pappalardo is a senior editor for Network World, covering ISPs, VPNs and related topics. Reach her at denisep@nww.com.