Global Communications Company Joins Beta Server Program …



Overview

Country or Region: United States

Industry: Telecommunications

Customer Profile

MCI, Inc. is a leading global communications provider, delivering innovative and cost-effective communications connectivity to businesses, governments, and consumers.

Business Situation

To maintain its competitive edge and deliver top-notch customer service, MCI must make security software and other mission-critical technology available to customers as soon as possible after it is released.

Solution

Membership in the Microsoft® Technology Adoption Program (TAP) enabled MCI to test and develop expertise with Windows Server™ 2003 with Service Pack 1 before it is commercially available.

Benefits

■ Increased security through Windows® Firewall and Data Execution Prevention

■ Improved customer service

■ Competitive edge with early product knowledge

| | |“Windows Server 2003 is one of the key platforms for MCI Hosting Services…We want to ensure that our hosting solutions offer customers rock-solid performance, security and reliability.”

Joe Crawford, Director, MCI Hosting Services

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| | | |MCI Hosting provides a comprehensive range of Web hosting and application management solutions to |

| | | |businesses of all sizes. To remain competitive and continually improve customer service and |

| | | |satisfaction, MCI offers customers highly secure and reliable solutions utilizing the latest |

| | | |technology. To help meet these strategic goals, MCI joined the Microsoft® Technology Adoption Program|

| | | |(TAP) to gain access to beta versions of Windows Server™ 2003 with Service Pack 1. By joining TAP and|

| | | |conducting extensive internal testing while the new server software was in development, MCI is now |

| | | |ideally positioned to offer Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1 to customers. |

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Situation

As a long-time leader delivering advanced hosting services, MCI Hosting Services offers a complete continuum of innovative managed hosting and Data Center services. MCI/Digex Enterprise Hosting holds more than 300 professional certifications from leading technology organizations like Microsoft, HP and Sun Microsystems and is compliant with SAS70 certified Type I and II.

MCI Hosting is also positioned in the Leaders Quadrant in Gartner Inc.'s Web Hosting Magic Quadrant©. According to Gartner, Inc., leaders are vendors who are performing well today, have a clear vision of market direction and are actively building competencies to sustain their leadership position in the market.

The company provides businesses of all sizes with a comprehensive range of secure, reliable Web hosting and application management solutions over the company’s wholly owned global Internet Protocol (IP) network from Internet and network colocation to fully managed, complex hosting services. By outsourcing their hosting requirements, enterprises can tap into a complete range of MCI solutions that enable them to better focus on their core competencies instead of spending time and money managing their Web infrastructure.

MCI Hosting has Internet data centers in North America, Europe, and the Asia/Pacific region, where it hosts customer Web sites, databases, and applications on more than 2,000 Microsoft® Windows®-based server computers. All data centers are directly connected to the company’s IP network, which ensures fast deployment and reliable connectivity within a secure environment.

Security is a key selling point for MCI and an issue of vital concern to its customers. The company offers a multi-layered security defense that incorporates the latest security technology. MCI continually monitors the IT industry for new products and technologies that can add value to its hosting solutions and strengthen security, while enhancing reliability and performance.

When Microsoft began development of its Windows Server™ 2003 with Service Pack 1 (SP1), a software update to the Windows Server operating system that provides significant security updates, enhancements, and features to protect businesses from viruses, worms, and other hacker attacks, MCI was interested in providing its customers with the most advanced solutions available.

Following the release of a server operating system or a significant service pack, however, a company typically does months of rigorous testing ensuring the new technology is compatible with its existing IT environment and to determine how the company can make the technology part of its own product and service offerings efficiently. In the Web hosting industry, this kind of lag time can undermine customer confidence and threaten the competitiveness of a company’s hosting services. MCI required a way to incorporate the newest technology in its services much more quickly.

“MCI is very focused on providing the most secure solutions to customers, and Windows Server 2003 is one of the key platforms for MCI hosting services,” says Joe Crawford, Director for MCI Hosting Services.

“To meet our customers’ demands and requirements, we need SP1 and its features as early as possible so that we can incorporate them into our offerings,” Crawford says. ”We want to ensure that our hosting solutions offer customers rock-solid performance, security and reliability.”

Solution

To prepare for its upgrade to Windows Server 2003 with SP 1, MCI joined the Technology Adoption Program (TAP) at Microsoft, which is designed to enable Microsoft customers to acquire hands-on experience with new technology prior to release, help shape product development by providing feedback, and to receive assistance in deploying Microsoft solutions.

Adding such real-world experience to its rigorous testing program enables MCI to develop troubleshooting and management expertise long before the company offers new products to its customers.

Before Microsoft launched TAP, MCI was a member of the Joint Development Program (JDP) for Windows Server 2003, which enabled the company to spend more than two years developing expertise with the new operating system before it was released and help shape development of the product. Windows Server 2003 is the foundation of Microsoft Windows Server System™ integrated server software.

Membership in TAP gave MCI access to prerelease versions of Windows Server 2003 with SP1 so that the company’s IT staff could learn the software, test its capabilities, and adapt it to the specific needs of MCI and its customers. For example, MCI requires automated delivery for its Hosting Services. As a result, MCI must configure the new software in a way that enables the company to administer, monitor, back up, and restore without hands-on involvement from MCI or its customers.

“Our customers benefit the most,” Crawford says. “Because MCI entered TAP in the early stages, we can have input into the development phase and be ready to roll when it’s launched in the marketplace.”

Key features in Windows Server 2003 with SP1 that MCI plans to use to help improve its own security and that of its customers include:

• Microsoft Internet Explorer updates. Enhancements help prevent several common security problems including unintentional downloads of misrepresented, malicious code.

• Windows Firewall. The host firewall creates a firewall around each client and server computer on a customer’s network.

• Security Configuration Wizard (SCW). The wizard reduces the attack surface of Windows Server 2003 by configuring server security according to existing server roles and stopping all services not necessary to perform those roles.

Throughout the JDP for Windows Server 2003 and the TAP for Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Microsoft has provided continuous consulting and support. “Microsoft provides us with timely, knowledgeable staff to help us through the issues we encounter,” Crawford says.

“Whether we are in the middle of a complex problem that directly affects our customers or simply need access to information about an undocumented issue, having someone on-site who not only knows the Microsoft products but also has direct contact into the different product channels at the company saves us an immense amount of time and is a resource of the highest value to our entire engineering team.”

Benefits

As a provider of Web hosting solutions for business of all sizes, MCI Hosting must provide its customers with the latest, most reliable and most secure technology, while optimizing its cost structure. By participating in the Technology Adoption Program at Microsoft, MCI was able to test Windows Server 2003 with SP1 and to realize substantial benefits.

Increased Security

All product testing at MCI takes place in the company’s technology lab, and much of the work uses beta software and hardware. MCI has found that the introduction of the Windows Firewall in Windows Server 2003 with SP1 will allow its product engineers to easily and inexpensively isolate their Windows-based servers in the lab, helping with troubleshooting when issues arise.

The new Windows Firewall also helps MCI protect source files that are distributed among data centers around the world by protecting server computers against potential infection from other servers. Windows Firewall locks a server from the start of the build so that only known people, sources, or destination systems can communicate with that server.

Dwayne Cox, Windows Engineer for MCI Hosting Services, remembers the Code Red worm incident during summer 2001. ”Our security engineers spent many working hours tracking the worm, deactivating ports and updating servers to ensure that our customers were completely protected,” he says.

Data Execution Prevention (DEP) technologies in Windows Server 2003 with SP1 make a repeat scenario unlikely, because DEP enables the system to mark one or more pages of memory as nonexecutable, protecting against exploitation by malicious code.

“While DEP doesn’t prevent all buffer overflow vulnerabilities, it does eliminate a whole class of worms like Code Red that insert and execute code from data pages,” says James Ream, Architect for MCI Hosting Services. “DEP represents another step forward in our ongoing protective measures used against hackers.”

Enhanced Customer Service

MCI Hosting takes many steps to help secure its hosting computers and to optimize them for specific roles such as dedicated Web or database servers. These steps include eliminating unnecessary services, closing unused ports, and tuning server performance. MCI writes custom code to perform these tasks as a part of the company’s automated server provisioning application. This recent release from Microsoft will increase MCI’s efficiency in these efforts.

In Windows Server 2003 with SP1, Microsoft introduces new functionality that is complementary to the security and standardization efforts already in place at MCI.

“The new Security Configuration Wizard in SP1 is an additional tool we can use to save development time, and also to help us build a library of role templates for an ever-increasing variety of server purposes,” Ream says. “And because SCW is based on industry-standard XML, it can be easily integrated into our existing XML-based provisioning system.”

Competitive Edge

TAP helps MCI stay ahead of the competition. As soon as Windows Server 2003 with SP1 is released, MCI will be ready to provide its customers with the latest, most secure hosting solutions. Through TAP, the company has gained real-world experience implementing Windows Server 2003 with SP1 in its production infrastructure.

“The single biggest benefit from our involvement in TAP is gaining access to new technology before it is released,” says Dwayne Cox. “TAP helps us provide input into the development process, as well as familiarize our team with the technology that enables us to offer leading-edge IP solutions to our customers.”

Windows Server 2003

The Microsoft Windows Server 2003 family helps organizations do more with less. Now you can: Run your IT infrastructure more efficiently; Build better applications faster; Deliver the best infrastructure for enhancing user productivity. And you can do all this faster, more securely, and at lower cost.

For more information about Windows Server 2003, please visit:

windowsserver2003

For more information about Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1, go to:

windowsserver2003/downloads/servicepacks/sp1

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| |Software and Services

■ Products

− Microsoft Windows Server 2003 with Service Pack 1

■ Services

– Microsoft Services

|Hardware

■ HP ProLiant DL380 G4

■ Compaq ProLiant DL360 | |

© 2005 Microsoft Corporation. All rights reserved. This case study is for informational purposes only. MICROSOFT MAKES NO WARRANTIES, EXPRESS OR IMPLIED, IN THIS SUMMARY. Microsoft, Windows, the Windows logo, Windows Server, and Windows Server System are either registered trademarks or trademarks of Microsoft Corporation in the United States and/or other countries. All other trademarks are property of their respective owners.

Document published March 2005 | | |

For More Information

For more information about Microsoft products and services, call the Microsoft Sales Information Center at (800) 426-9400. In Canada, call the Microsoft Canada Information Centre at (877) 568-2495. Customers who are deaf or hard-of-hearing can reach Microsoft text telephone (TTY/TDD) services at (800) 892-5234 in the United States or (905) 568-9641 in Canada. Outside the 50 United States and Canada, please contact your local Microsoft subsidiary. To access information using the World Wide Web, go to:

For more information about MCI products and services, call (800) 465-7187 or visit the Web site at:



“The single biggest benefit from our involvement in TAP is gaining access to new technology before it is released. TAP helps us provide input into the development process, as well as familiarize our team with the technology that enables us to offer leading-edge IP solutions to our customers.”

Dwayne Cox, Engineer, MCI Hosting

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“DEP [Data Execution Prevention] represents another step forward in our ongoing protective measures used against hackers.”

James Ream, Architect, MCI Hosting

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