Internap Network Services Corporation (NASDAQ: INAP), a provider of choice for the world's elite businesses on the Internet, today announced that Scottrade, a leading online financial services company, has upgraded to the latest addition to Internap's flow control platform family - the FCP-10Gx - to improve their network performance by boosting transaction speed and reliability.
Housed in Scottrade's new data center, Internap's Flow Control Platform (FCP) is an industry leading premise-based solution that implements route changes based on real-time network issues, allowing Scottrade to maximize multiple Internet connections for peak performance and increased uptime.
"When we bought Internap's smaller product a few years ago we saw significant improvements right away, so when our capacity needs increased we were open to seeing what the 10G FCP could do," said Joan Albeck, director of IT Infrastructure at Scottrade. "For every millisecond of improvement in latency, we can add traffic to the network and process more transactions. I believe the performance offered by the FCP has allowed us to provide an exceptional end-user experience and improve productivity. Internap has certainly delivered."
A longstanding Internap customer, Scottrade upgraded to the FCP-10Gx to accommodate its growing capacity requirements and uses the solution to enhance the speed of its customers' online transactions, which include buying and selling stocks and mutual funds. By providing control of bandwidth allocation, the FCP gives Scottrade the ability to improve overall performance of its network and the mission-critical applications that run over it. The FCP also provides Scottrade visibility into Internet traffic issues as it intelligently works to route traffic around problem areas of the Internet. As a result of the FCP's deployment, inter-office applications for Scottrade's 298 branch offices, as well as online transactions serving its 1.6 million active online trading accounts are faster and more reliable.
"In a complex e-business environment, maintaining fast and reliable network performance is essential. With Internap's FCP technology, Scottrade gains a line of protection against downtime that is unmatched in its ability to manage high-volume traffic across multiple networks," said James P. DeBlasio, president and chief executive officer of Internap. "As we continue to enhance our network and premise-based optimization solutions, we appreciate the opportunity to grow with Scottrade by helping them manage and consistently deliver premium performance for all of their Web-based services."
As noted by Forrester Research, 58% of online users say performance is key when determining whether they will return to a company's site for e-commerce transactions. In turn, providing a satisfactory online experience can help businesses retain customers, and positively impact profitability.