What exactly is a Managed Service Provider?

Q1: What is an MSP and how is it different from an ASP offering?
K2Analytics is not a subscription service like Salesforce.com. Here's why... The core difference is in the licensing and ownership of the software itself. An MSP is a Managed Service Provider, which houses the customer’s licensed software. This ultimately gives you the freedom to move the solution in-house or to another hosting provider. An ASP is an Application Service Provider, where the software cost is bundled in to that monthly fee. In this model, a customer is not free to move the software and application to wherever they want. In both models, you are the owner of your own data. Some ASP offerings share hardware environments among multiple customers, this is known as a "multi-tenant" or "shared-hosting" environment. Because of the sensitive nature of financial data, each K2Analytics customer gets their own domain and hardware. This allows you, the customer, full control of when you want to perform software upgrades and patches.

Q2: How can I be assured another customer cannot see my data?
Every customer gets their own domain with primary and backup domain controllers. Security is controlled using Active Directory and the System 9 user provisioning. Each customer gets dedicated top of the line 64-bit HP/Compaq servers with fully redundant power systems, data lines, and disk storage. The segregated n-tier architecture is ideal for applications that can be accessed globally.