Apr 25th 2000: Cisco named Application Infrastructure Providers (AIPs) as a separate ASP-related class of providers recognised under its Cisco Powered Network (CPN) programme yesterday.

AIPs provide the underlying technology infrastructure for application hosting, adding security, service level management and other application management resources on top of the traditional hosting provider offerings such as data centre facilities and network connectivity.

The extra category is necessary because many ASPs want to outsource this aspect of their operations to hosting providers, Eugene Lee, VP marketing for Cisco's Applications Technology Group told ASP News Review yesterday. "Most ASPs are not really interested in being data centre geeks [in the] long term," he said.

But many hosting providers do not understand the specific needs of ASPs. "Most of the large colocation providers are just really busy doing Web hosting," said Lee. "In most cases - for Web hosting - all they care about is rapid URL switching."

Hosted applications are much more sensitive to delays and holdups - known as latency - within the network, he explained. "In many cases the latency can be dramatically decreased, but [those techniques] can only work if they are supported end-to-end."

The new Cisco accreditation is intended to mark out those AIPs who operate the necessary infrastructure - one that gives ASPs the ability to monitor and control application delivery from the data centre all the way to the customer premises.

Digex, Data Return and Exenet Technologies became the first three providers named to the programme yesterday. Several others are in the pipeline, said Lee.

Cisco expects the new accreditation will help bring more providers, particularly larger telecoms providers and ISPs, into the ASP marketplace without posing a competitive threat to existing players. "It means people with big investments in their infrastructure can be in the ASP business without becoming an ASP," said Lee.

"We're trying to help accelerate this stratification because we think it makes sense," he added. "The more ASPs can do to leverage infrastructure efficiencies, the more effective they'll be at providing services to their customers."

Cisco introduced an ASP designation within the CPN programme last September. Its public commitment to the application hosting market dates back a year to the launch of the Cisco Hosted Applications Initiative in April 1999 (see related ASPnews.com story, Cisco champions app hosting - news, 26th Apr 1999).

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