In 2003, Attenda took over the management of the hugely publicised www.three.co.uk, Hutchison 3G UK's (commonly recognised in the telecommunications market under the brand name 3) customer facing site.

Ousting incumbent provider Savvis, Attenda supports the site which experiences hundreds of thousands of hits each day and managed a seamless and risky migration without downtime throughout their high profile, multi million pound advertising campaign.

3's partnership with Attenda forms part of its selective outsourcing strategy, whereby non-core business operations and processes are looked after by an expert, trusted supplier. The deal means that Attenda will manage 3's UK Sun-based Internet infrastructure.

High availability and performance are therefore key for the company to capitalise on loyalty and revenue opportunities. Attenda provide dedicated, 24x7 monitoring as well as delivering capacity-on-demand scaling to cope with spikes in traffic to the site to achieve this.

"Any outsourcing deal involves some degree of risk, as the performance delivered by the third party involved inevitably has an impact on your interaction with customers. Nowhere is this more true than on the Web," said Robin Wiseman, Web manager at 3.

"We were therefore looking for a partner who could really match our values and commitment to quality service - and who could prove it too," Wiseman continued. "Attenda impressed us with both its references and its willingness to commit to the highest standards."

"3's sites are core to its overall brand and service so it must be sure that its Internet infrastructure is in safe hands," said David Godwin, vice president, sales at Attenda. "We were willing to sign up to an SLA which commits us to the performance benchmarks 3 offers its own clients. We were confident of meeting these levels, and could demonstrate this with our strong track record working with other high-profile organisations."

Guinness World Records is an annual publication, printed in 23 different languages and is available in over 100 different countries. It has sold more than 100 million copies and is the third biggest-selling book ever, after the Bible and the Koran.

Since its launch, the online site, www.guinnessworldrecords.com , has registered over 1 million subscribers. To grow its user base, the operation of the site has been outsourced to Attenda to ensure its visitors enjoy the availability of the full functionality of the site, 24/7.

Subscribers can read over 3,000 records, see videos of records being broken, even submit their claim for a Guinness World Record.

Guinness World Records is a division of HIT Entertainment, a leading independent producer and distributor of high-quality family programming worldwide. "Our strategy has been to recruit and retain consumers, so it is vital to ensure the site is fully functional and available. Attenda give me peace of mind and first class support." commented Peter Laker, Head of IT Development at Guinness World Records.

The Harrods brand is recognised the world over for its distinguished goods and quality of service. Unlike its Knightsbridge store, www.harrods.co.uk is open around the clock and around the world; 24x7 availability has been a key factor in establishing the Harrods brand online.

Harrods' site is built using Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 - its advanced functionality and speed of deployment provide significant time and cost savings during development. However, the configuration and operation of this advanced software involves a significant step-up in complexity, demanding proven experience throughout the design and operation stages.

As such, Microsoft recommended Attenda to design and operate the infrastructure for the Harrods site on the strength of the unparalleled skills base and experience of delivering the levels of availability required for business critical sites.

As a global brand, this level of availability is exceptionally important; if the site goes down there is a quantifiable loss of revenue, not to mention the damage to Harrods' reputation, which is not so easily measured.

In September 2002, A Harrods spokesperson commented:

"We have seen a real difference in our sites availability in the three months we have been working with Attenda. We were specifically looking for a company that had both the skills and experience to manage Microsoft Commerce Server 2000 , so we contacted Microsoft directly. It in turn recommended Attenda and we haven't looked back - its service is second to none."

For over 7 years, Microsoft has entrusted Attenda to manage a range of Web sites on its behalf, including www.microsoft.co.uk.

Each site uses the very latest in the Microsoft product range and Attenda works extremely closely with Microsoft and their UK Web development partners to ensure that a well-managed and reliable platform is provided for some of the industry's most advanced Web sites.

The ongoing security and availability of the Microsoft site is of unparalleled importance - the brand equity lost if their site goes down or experiences a security breach would be considerable.

Attenda rigorously applies a range of security measures from the physical architecture of the site up to sophisticated intrusion detection systems and virus control. This thorough approach to the application of best practice security process and procedures has earned Attenda ISO27001 certification, one of the first in the sector to achieve this.