How do you measure ROI in Second Life? Ros Lawler, Random House:

110 Figure 3.2 shows how the client computers within homes and businesses are connected to the Internet via local Internet service providers ISPs which, in turn, are linked to larger ISPs with connection to the major national and international infrastructure or backbones which are managed by commercial organizations such as ATT, UUNET and Verizon. In the UK, at the London Internet Exchange in the Docklands area of east London, a facility exists to connect multiple backbones of the major ISPs within the UK onto a single high-speed link out of the UK into Europe and to the world. These high-speed links can be thought of as the motorways on the ‘information superhighway’, while the links provided from ISPs to consumers are equivalent to slow country roads. Globally, there are many submarine cables which form the backbone between countries, which are susceptible to damage, for example in January 2008 a ship’s anchor severed a cable in the Mediterranean resulting in a dramatic slowdown in Internet access for people in India, Sri Lanka, Pakistan and the Middle East. Hosting of web sites and e-business services While it is possible for companies to manage their own services by setting up web servers within their own company offices, or to use their ISP, it is common practice to use a special- ist hosting provider to manage this service. For example, Rackspace Figure 3.3 describe itself as ‘Europe’s fastest growing hosting company’. Since 2001 Rackspace has been hosting and supporting mission critical web sites, Internet applications, e-mail servers, security and storage services for over 4,000 customers. Rackspace also has US offices. Figure 3.2 Physical and network infrastructure components of the Internet Levels IV and III in Figure 3.1 Local ISP Access by: leased line or phone line Local ISP LAN Home PC client Business e-mail or web server Access by: phone line or cable Global ISPs Backbones ‘The Internet’ Business PCs clients Part 1 Introduction Internet service provider ISP A provider providing home or business users with a connection to access the Internet. They can also host web-based applications. Backbones High-speed communications links used to enable Internet communications across a country and internationally. Hosting provider A service provider that manages the server used to host an organization web site and its connection to the Internet backbones.