Cummins has awarded AT&T a multimillion dollar five-year hosting contract. AT&T will provide the global manufacturer of diesel engines and related technology with 4,000 square feet of secure Internet Data Center (IDC) space at AT&T's Birmingham-area IDC. AT&T's UK facility will replace one of Cummins' aging data centers that was out of capacity.

"AT&T has always had a strong relationship with Cummins, and we felt that it had a superior data center solution with the added benefit of being on the AT&T global network," said Bruce Smith, Director of Computing Services for Cummins. "AT&T has been managing networks and collocation facilities longer than any other provider, and this experience factored into our choice," he added.

In addition to AT&T's experience, its flexibility in providing customized space in one of its 32 global Internet data centers also played a big part in the decision. Cummins anticipates migrating systems into the AT&T site in mid- 2007.