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Downtime is against the law
One of Canada's largest legal firms opts for a Q9-managed Web site
As one of Canada's largest business law firms, Stikeman Elliott LLP can't afford to be without its corporate Web site.
Last year, Stikeman Elliott lawyers participated in many of Canada's top 25 transactions worth more than $22 billion. And 27 Stikeman Elliott partners have been recognized as ranking among the country's best legal minds. Securing that kind of reputation for the -over 400-lawyer firm requires an Internet presence that's both secure and reliable. "Reputation is key," says Venky Srinivasan, Director of Technology at Stikeman Elliott's Toronto office. "Security is important whether you're doing e-business or not. That's just the way we see it."
With operations in Montreal, Calgary, Vancouver, Ottawa, and overseas in New York, London, Hong Kong and Sydney, Stikeman Elliott customers must be able to access the Web site day and night across time zones. Downtime isn't an option. Recent research suggests that many companies with mission-critical Internet requirements are turning to Managed Web hosting.
According to Forrester Research Inc., more than half of all large Canadian companies plan to use Web hosting and 83 per cent of firms that already outsource will make the move to managed Web hosting services sometime this year. That will push the value of the Canadian Web hosting market to $2.5 billion by 2006.
But you don't have to be negotiating billion dollar mergers to realize how secure, reliable hosting makes good business sense. Companies across a wide variety of industries, including banking, publishing, retailing and natural resources are realizing that the infrastructure expenses for bulletproof, 24/7 operation are beyond them.
Stikeman Elliott turned to Q9 Networks Inc. and its new Q9express managed server bundle. The pre-built bundles allow businesses with mission-critical Internet operations to choose a dedicated hosting package without the fuss and muss of piecing a solution together from scratch. "We were in a shared hosting arrangement before and we wanted to move to a dedicated hosting service," says Srinivasan. "But at the same time we didn't want the headaches of dealing with the hardware. We wanted a managed solution." Available in three bundles, Q9express offers a fully managed server, 100 per cent available Internet connection, Web-based control panel and 24/7 technical support and monitoring service.
Stikeman Elliott had considered building and hosting the site in-house, but after crunching the numbers on costs for hardware, software, maintenance, configuration, and myriad other factors such as bandwidth, Srinivasan found that a third-party managed bundle was the best option.
"We didn't want to go with the headache of adding security and making sure that the bandwidth is there. That's not our core competency," he says. "Q9 built and runs it for us. This way, it's just one small cost every month. It's one less headache for me, it's peace of mind."
It also means Stikeman Elliott can take advantage of Q9 Networks' state-of-the-art data centre, an elaborate facility in downtown Toronto secured by fingerprint identification scanners, card readers and a team of watchful security guards. Fully redundant Internet connectivity provided through not just one but more than a dozen Internet service providers means connectivity is always there. Uptime is guaranteed.
Take, for example, the 2003 federal budget released earlier this year. When Stikeman Elliott posted an in-depth analysis of the plan on its corporate Web site, hundreds of visitors -- some potential clients -- flocked to the site. Neither the server nor the connectivity blinked. "The service never goes down," Srinivasan says. "Q9 provides us with that advantage."
For Stikeman Elliot, the jury's in. The verdict is, a managed solution is the way to go.
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