The Economist Group, one of the world’s leading sources of analysis on international business and world affairs, is using Rackspace’s managed cloud services and its Fanatical Support.
The Economist Group is relying on Rackspace to satisfy its mission critical requirements: almost 100 percent uptime and to address their PCI compliance requirements for the hosted infrastructure. This means that The Economist Group’s customers can always access the Group’s sites – and safely.The Economist Group’s original magazine was first published in 1843. Always at the forefront of technical change, The Economist Group is now leveraging cloud computing to expand its interaction with nearly 1.3 million print and over 303,500 online subscribers. “We are very pleased to be able to help the Economist Group utilise the power and advantages of cloud computing while removing the challenge and expense of managing complex IT infrastructure and application platforms,” said Adam McCarthy, Rackspace’s Senior Director & General Manager, Asia.
As The Economist Group grew in the Asia Pacific region, there were about ten sites hosted by as many providers and created by almost as many developers. IT Services wanted to move these microsites under its direct control and wanted a managed cloud service to help them administer them. The Economist Group chose Rackspace managed hosting services for its customizable dedicated server solutions, an IT solution that offers Fanatical Support®, the industry-leading service level agreement with 24x7x365 support for mission critical requirements and bandwidth flexibility.
Jerem Curry, Head of IT Services and Information Security, Asia with The Economist Group, had enjoyed a positive previous experience with Rackspace: he had a cloud account to support a small web application, but a cloud site was not big enough for what the Economist Group wanted to do. Fortunately, Rackspace cloud servers were about to come online in Hong Kong. “A managed service, reliable, secure,easily scalable,and reasonably priced: I think I was one of the first customers in Hong Kong to sign up,” said Jerem Curry.
Rackspace advised The Economist Group’s IT Services on how to improve the stability of the sites and supported them in eliminating risk and bolstering internal site-management oversight. Together, they ensured that all sites would be updated or built to best practices. The Economist Group Web and Digital teams in London helped to create vetting standards for external developers and guidelines for platforms. All these initiatives allowed IT Services to concentrate on their key role: serving customers. With Rackspace looking after infrastructure and websites, the IT team gained the freedom to add value to their business. Rackspace now hosts 13 websites for the Economist Group and more are planned.
For anyone doing business online, the priority is to deliver compliant payment-card security and fraud protection, while ensuring that the system architecture remains flexible. The Economist Group decided to migrate a Payment Card Industry Data Security Standard (PCI DSS) compliant website to Rackspace. During the PCI DSS migration, Rackspace was with Curry and his team every step of the way — to confirm requirements, set up the security controls, and help with documentation and testing. The IT team was concerned that there could be too much downtime during the transition, or possible security incidents, but the migration went smoothly.
“The payment card industry data security standard is intense, so Rackspace worked very closely with the team. Once the site was up and running, the Economist Group went through an assessment with a qualified security assessor and the site attained compliance,” added McCarthy.