A how-to guide for ASPs and an award program to recognize model providers marked the beginning of a campaign to promote best practice launched by the ASP Industry Consortium today.
The “Guide to the ASP Delivery Model” sets out to define the many components of the ASP model and to serve as a starting point for establishing a set of best practices for the industry. It describes the operating responsibilities of ASPs, focusing on infrastructure, connectivity, security and delivery platforms, as well as setting out what it sees as the benefits to customers of the ASP model.
The full document is available only to members of the Consortium, but an executive summary is to be made available for download by non-members and users from the Consortium’s Web site, www.allaboutasp.org
It has been compiled by members of the Consortium’s best practices committee, with committee member Cameron McCaskill of iRenaissance, Inc serving as lead author and editor.
“The ASP Industry Consortium has attempted to accomplish two somewhat opposing objectives with this document,” explained the committee’s chairman, Dr Scott Penberthy of FrontLine Capital. “Namely, to present information that is both simple enough that even an ASP novice can understand the basic components of the model, while being detailed enough to serve as a comprehensive checklist for ASP requirements.”
The Consortium also formally announced its ASPire awards, first revealed last month (see related asp-news story, Apr 19th). The first awards presentation ceremony will take place Nov 14th at the ASP Summit conference, which runs alongside top computer industry trade show COMDEX/Fall 2000 in Las Vegas.
Awards will be presented in four categories, recognizing excellence in delivery, integration, management/operations, and enablement. The deadline for entries is Aug 18th. Entrants, who must be members of the Consortium, have to submit a case study for evaluation by the committee. The committee has appointed evaluation teams from within its members, who will examine the case studies anonymously, using predefined measures of performance that the committee believes reflect best practices. A shortlist of five finalists in each category will then be reviewed by an external audit team of industry experts to pick the ultimate winners of the ASPire awards.
The guidelines established for the awards and the case studies submitted will contribute to user and industry awareness of what constitutes best practice, Consortium president Paula Hunter told asp-news at a briefing today. “It establishes a checklist for the end user when evaluating ASPs,” she said.
“Having a review board external to the Consortium will really add credibility to the award,” she added. The evaluation teams for each award are led by representatives of Netstore (enablement), IBM (integration), Microsoft (management/operations) and Uunet Deutschland (delivery).
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