Microsoft Demonstrates New Service Provider Tools And Technologies Based on Windows 2000 at ISPCON Spring 2000

ORLANDO, Fla., May 23, 2000 — Highlighting the strength of the Microsoft® Windows® 2000 platform for the ISP/ASP market, Microsoft Corp. further demonstrates its commitment to the success of ISPs, cable operators, telecommunications companies and Web hosters at ISPCON Spring 2000, the world’s largest gathering for the Internet’s professional community. A keynote address on Windows Media™
technology and a host of tools and technologies illustrating the strength of the Windows 2000 platform will help demonstrate the many ways in which ISPs and ASPs are successfully implementing and managing solutions based on tools from Microsoft and its industry partners.

Of key interest to show attendees will be the announcement that Windows 2000 is the platform for the ISP/ASP environment. Launched in February of this year, Windows 2000 provides a scalable, reliable and cost-effective platform for both shared and dedicated hosting, and offers a variety of technologies especially important to the ISP/ASP industry.
“By meeting the scalability, reliability and manageability needs of ISPs, Windows 2000 is the platform for ISP/ASP services,”
said Thomas Koll, vice president of the Network Solutions Group at Microsoft.
“With Windows 2000, ISPs and ASPs have available to them a range of hardware, software and services based on incredible technology that can help them succeed in this continuously evolving marketplace.”

The strength of the platform was confirmed this week with findings from a new report from ZD Labs stating that the Windows Media Services feature in the Windows 2000 Advanced Server platform is capable of distributing over 9,000 concurrent narrowband and over 2,400 broadband video streams on a single physical server. The report also found that for over 12 days, Windows Media Services in Windows 2000 successfully streamed 2,406 100Kbps video streams with a 99.9999999 percent accuracy rate in its delivery of over 26 billion packets of data.
“This is the kind of industrial strength that hosters are looking for in a platform to integrate streaming digital content with e-commerce and Web applications,”
Koll said.

Industry Players Experience Increased Performance With Windows 2000

“The Windows 2000 platform provides an environment in which the systems just keep running,” said Jason Lochhead, chief technology officer at Data Return Corp., noting that in testing Windows 2000 against the Windows NT® operating system, performance and reliability have increased by 30 to 40 percent.
“Customer response has been so positive that we are rapidly migrating all of our customers to Windows 2000 as soon as possible.”

“After extensive beta testing by Interland on the Windows 2000 platform, including testing several applications such as Office 2000 and FrontPage® 2000, Interland has seen performance improvements in excess of 50 percent,”
said Ken Gavranovic, president and CEO, Interland Inc.
“Interland plans to migrate the majority of its more than 1,300 shared servers to Windows 2000 by the end of summer.”

“IMC Online is deploying all new servers on Windows 2000 and is migrating all Windows NT servers to Windows 2000 by the third quarter of 2000. We have seen a marked increase in performance and scalability and an amazing 99.999 percent availability,”
said Urban Schneider, president, IMC Online.
“The simplified remote management and the revolutionary Active Directory™ service also make Windows 2000 a superior solution for shared and dedicated Internet Web servers.”

Streaming Media Opportunities for ISPs and ASPs

Among the services provided by Windows 2000 is Windows Media Technologies, the focus of a May 24 keynote by Will Poole, vice president of Microsoft’s Digital Media Division. In his address Poole will discuss the strength of the Windows platform, which enables ISPs to create a high-quality experience for their customers, provides easier deployment and interoperability, and offers service providers the ability to self-host or outsource the technology.

“Windows is an incredibly reliable and secure platform for digital media,”
Poole said.
“The increase in the amount of content that people want to offer on the Internet, multiplied by extensive customer demand and the inherent strengths of the platform, provides some incredible and sustainable revenue opportunities for ISPs.”

Additional Tools and Technologies Based on Windows 2000

Those attending ISPCON will see a wide array of technologies for the ISP/ASP market developed on the Windows 2000 platform, such as a PowerApp Web appliance server from Dell, a Web server solution designed to meet the high demands of service providers, dotcoms and
“clicks and mortar”
businesses. Using such Windows 2000-based technologies as Internet Information Services (IIS) 5.0 and Network Load Balancing Services, the solution offers a complete, highly tuned platform for building very scaleable and reliable Web-hosting services. In addition, these products take advantage of the Windows 2000 setup technologies to ensure smooth deployment and management as well as overall ease of use.

Also among the technologies being demonstrated is an automated Web provisioning tool that reduces the time it takes an ISP to provision a Windows 2000-based Web site from 35 minutes to just five minutes. The tool also allows nontechnical personnel and even customers to provision new Web sites themselves, reducing the need for service providers to deploy expensive IT resources.

Dell, as one of 14 companies demonstrating Windows 2000-based technologies in the Microsoft partner pavilion at ISPCON, continues its commitment to ensure that ISPs and ASPs have access to key Windows 2000-based technologies and training with its Internet Data Center tour semitrailer truck in the Microsoft booth. The truck will feature customized demonstrations on topics such as performance benchmarking, Web server load balancing, Exchange hosting and building an ideal data center solution.

Other industry partners participating in the Microsoft partner pavilion include Akamai, Compaq Computer Corp., Digital Island, Enron, eQuest, ExecuTrain, Hewlett-Packard Co., Intel Corp., Lucent Technologies Inc., NCR, Portal Software, Winstar and Xevo.

In addition, as part of its comprehensive effort to ensure that ISPs and ASPs are successful with Windows 2000, Microsoft provides a variety of other service and support offerings for service providers. These include the Windows 2000 Service Provider Early Adopter program, a new online support community and a comprehensive set of information resources within its ISN Web site. Microsoft also continues its national TechNet training workshops on Web hosting, through which more than 500 ISPs have been trained on Windows 2000 to date. Service providers can learn more about all of these offerings by visiting http://www.microsoft.com/isn/isp/ .

Founded in 1975, Microsoft (Nasdaq
“MSFT”
) is the worldwide leader in software, services and Internet technologies for personal and business computing. The company offers a wide range of products and services designed to empower people through great software – any time, any place and on any device.

Microsoft, Windows, Windows Media, Windows NT, FrontPage and Active Directory are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corp. in the United States and/or other countries.

The names of actual companies and products mentioned herein may be the trademarks of their respective owners.

Note to editors: If you are interested in viewing additional information on Microsoft, please visit the Microsoft Web page at http://www.microsoft.com/presspass/ on Microsoft’s corporate information pages or http://www.microsoft.com/isn/ for industry news.

Related Posts