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back to article AT&T wants to run your data center

In a bad economy, any job that can be turned into a service is at risk. That's why system administrators should be a little worried, with so many companies offering remote IT management services to IT shops. This week, telecom giant AT&T threw its hat into the ring with its own remote infrastructure management service. Thanks …

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  1. James Woods

    not viable

    ATT isn't a company you can count on anymore. They account for a very small percentage of ip transit. At one time before the isps starting to setup peering agreements themselves with other datacenters companies like att were alot more attractive since they provided connectivity.

    Comcast/Adelphia used att in my area prior to comcast just doing it's own peering, now they have no need for ATT. As the larger isps have no need for att why would anyone else? You'll want to be where your customers are, closer to your customers, being with ATT isn't going to put you close to your customers.

    ATT will try to use it's name to run with this service but the ATT name means nothing like it once did, it's a dinosaur that'll soon be extinct all together.

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  2. Frank

    @Timothy Prickett Morgan re. RIM

    Can you and your colleagues please try to use that helpful convention where the first use of an acronym has its meaning clearly explained?

    When I first saw 'RIM' in your article, I did a scan-back and figured out it probably means 'remote IT management' and was happy with that. Later, I saw 'Remote Infrastructure Services Market' and wondered if that might be it (extra 'S' but hey, maybe).

    It was only in the final paragraph that I saw 'AT&T did not divulge pricing on the Remote Infrastructure Management..', when it became clear what RIM means.

    Then again, it may be that you did this deliberately to force me to read carefully through the article, in which case - well done :)

    P.S For those commenters who are tempted to explain to me what AT&T means - AT&T is not an acronym (not anymore, it used to be), it's the name of a large and long established company that I might reasonably be expected to know about.

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  3. Anonymous Coward
    Pirate

    Senior Systems Engineer

    at&t is currently using IBM to manage their data centers. If IBM doesn't send their own techs in to work on the equipment, they subcontract back to the equipment vendor.

    This as usual was set up in the ivory towers of the upper management with a wink-wink, nod-nod, know what I mean-know what I mean!

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  4. Terry Barnes

    @ James Woods

    You didn't actually read the article did you James?

    The decline in traditional business is I presume why they want to branch out and use the experience they have managing internal IT to offer a service to their customers. What does the percentage of IP transit they carry have to do in any way with how well they could run your data centre?

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  5. Oisin McGuigan
    Alert

    AT&T!!!

    Haha, they can't even manage themselves let alone a data center!!! They are the most incompetant baffoons ever to have cast their ugly shadow upon IT. Let me picture the scenario;

    IT Guy calls AT&T helpline " My Datacenter is down, what is going on"

    AT&T Helpline: "Sir, Can I get your name"

    IT Guy: "John Smith, Your phone system already asked me that question, now whats going on"

    AT&T Helpline "Please state your problem"

    IT Guy: " My fu@king datacenter is down and I'm fu@ked!!! I said that already"

    AT&T Helpline " Oh sir, that's not my dept, I'll transfer you now"

    IT Guy " This is the number I was given"

    AT&T Helpline: Ring. ring...

    Replay the above scenario until you are fired.

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  6. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    Remote Management

    If I had ever seen one of the remote management services that actually worked right I might be able to get excited about this. Truthfully, many customers who thought they had infrastructure management previously might go for this. It satisfies the need to blame someone outside their organization for lack of proactive monitoring and promises some cost savings in the future. I am not saying this is what will actually happen. But it is a good sell.

    I can still remember an IBM Global Services customer being told that there was a maximum number of severity 1 events covered under their contract :)

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  7. Anonymous Coward
    Joke

    @Frank

    the problem is that the acronym for 'Remote Infrastructure Services Market' is too close to a similar sounding word that starts with "j" and the prior reference to "comcast just doing it's own peering" by James looks too much lik Comcast doing its own peeing....

    People might think this was a pr0n site or something.

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  8. Anonymous Coward
    Anonymous Coward

    AT&T

    Most (if not all) of the US WoW servers are ran by AT&T :).

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  9. Eduard Coli
    Stop

    Bla

    Imagine all the data AT&T can sell to the spooks, gonzo governments, organized crime and anyone else willing to pay them for the kind of data they already got caught taking illegally.

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