IT Week: As technical architect of managed hosting provider Elinia, can you explain the firm’s genesis?

James Carnie: It was started by a group of guys from BT who worked with the firm during its hosting push in the 1990s. But BT was putting so much emphasis on the pre-sales side to win these big contracts that when it got them, the delivery arm was swamped. Big companies wanted a hosted platform, but they had to be turned down. So we then started up Elinia with a third-party supplier agreement with BT.

How do you differentiate as a managed hosting provider?

Managed hosting is about keeping the engine ticking over. Sometimes managed hosting firms almost have to invent products and services to give tangible benefits to their customers. The key to success is flexibility in what you can offer ­ we run small platforms for large organisations and large platforms for relatively small organisations.

How important is security to your customers?

Managed hosting is all about trust, if an application on our infrastructure is running part of someone’s business, we must be trusted with that data. Part of the challenge in winning new business is gaining that trust, which is why such things as the ISO standards and Payment Card Industry (PCI) Data Security Standard are good to have.

Has PCI DSS raised awareness of the security issues surrounding the handling of sensitive data?

Although lots of firms know it exists, few of them have actually sat down and taken the time to understand the standard. It is good common sense stuff but the balance can be important ­ if you are too prescriptive with standards they can be inflexible, but if they are too lightweight they can be overly open to interpretation. At the moment, for example, PCI does not account for virtualisation ­ so we have had to talk to them about rewriting the standard and I am guessing they will be able to do that.

Are you finding that potential customers are becoming more savvy about what to look for in a managed hosting provider?

There are three types of customer: informed, which is great; uninformed, which is fine because we can then educate them; and misinformed, which is more problematic. If a managed hosting firm operates to a strict set of standards it may find it a challenge trying to convince customers there is value in paying more for this.

Is the green agenda beginning to dominate customer requirements for their hosting providers?

It is definitely a good thing, but the number one question I get asked is still about security. This will probably change but we have not reached a point yet when the number one question customers ask is “Is your datacentre green?”.