Hi Dana, The brief answer from the Cleveland Museum of Art is:
Yes we are outsourcing to a friendly and flexible local ISP. It has been successful in that they are responsive to any special programming or distribution needs. The provider is apknet www.apk.net and they have also helped us with a special broadband content distribution program funded by the Technology Opportunity Program called "Lifelong Learning in the Arts" which provides IP/TV interactive and archived video productions to seniors in assisted living communities. In other words, they really work with us, and not just sell us services. [Recently our U.K. based web-developer said that he was recommending their hosting to some U.K. clients.] The main reason that we outsourced hosting was to keep in line with our in-house technology "mantra," "The core competency of a museum is not the mastery of complex technology... it is the creative use of it." Maintaining technology resources that are not directly content and mission related can be a distraction... I prefer that technical staff work on ideas and solutions. There is one qualification here,though. As we pay for bandwidth used, and our site includes more diverse media-objects and higher resolution images, we may find that it pays for the website to redirect requests for high-bandwidth elements to a home-based server. But this is also only because through a relationship with a local university we have a very high bandwidth, underutilized pipe which could handle this function. But we haven't decided yet. The moral, however, is still, know your own situation and vulnerabilities. I hope this is helpful. You are welcome to contact off-list. Len Steinbach Chief Information Officer Cleveland Museum of Art -----Original Message----- From: Dana Mitroff [mailto:[email protected]] Sent: Thursday, January 02, 2003 4:00 PM To: [email protected] Subject: outsourcing museum web hosting Dear Colleagues, At the San Francisco Museum of Modern Art, we are exploring the possibility of outsourcing the hosting of our institutional Web site, which is currently maintained in-house by our IT department on a Windows 2000 server running Microsoft Internet Information Server. We are curious to learn who else is outsourcing the hosting of their institutional Web site. What has been your experience with managed hosting? Which provider do you use? And why did you decide to go with a hosted solution for your Web site? If I get enough interesting responses, perhaps we have the seed for a larger MCN 2003 panel on outsourcing vs. in-house technology solutions. :) Many thanks, Dana Mitroff Senior Web Manager San Francisco Museum of Modern Art 151 Third Street San Francisco, CA 94103-3159 [email protected] www.sfmoma.org --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [email protected] --- You are currently subscribed to mcn_mcn-l as: [email protected] To unsubscribe send a blank email to [email protected]
