Updated: 10 May 1999
SunGard Recovery Services Inc. founded the commercial computing recovery industry and is the premiere provider of total business recovery solutions for all major computing platforms
James Grogan, Vice President of Technology Support at SunGard, points out that the nature of the disaster recovery business is constantly changing, which makes flexible storage solutions essential. "Now some customers want disaster tolerance, or 24 x 365 computing, which translates into virtually zero downtime and instantaneous recovery. In order to provide high reliability, we rely on the proven peformance of StorageWorks highly available RAID subsystems"
Disaster. Knock on wood. Every year it happens to many businesses, whether flood, fire, hurricane, bombing, or simply a failed system upgrade. An unforeseen disaster can cripple a company's mission-critical applications and severely block its revenue stream. Helping companies stay afloat and open for business during disasters is the stock and trade of SunGard Recovery Services, the nation's leading provider of disaster recovery services. SunGard pioneered the commercial computer "hotsite" industry in 1978. Its Philadelphia Megacenter is the largest disaster recovery facility in the world, providing total solutions to customers worldwide. SunGard maintains expertise in every major computing platform and provides effective, flexible storage solutions for all those platforms.
"Sungard runs 24 hours a day, 365 days a year and must be prepared to address every contingency imaginable," explains Bob Cornelius, SunGard Product Manager for Digital Products. "Compaq StorageWorks gives us the reliability, high availability and cross-platform support we need everyday of the year."
The challenge
A large Northern Virginia Corporation was unable to access data for the local-area network in its financial center due to severe flooding and an accompanying ban on all auto traffic. The disaster occurred on a Sunday.
On the same day, SunGuard quickly downloaded their client's backup data onto a Compaq StorageWorks RAID Array at its Herndon, VA Metrocenter. By 8:30 Monday morning, SunGard had relocated the company's entire corporate finance department to the MetroCenter, which supplies emergency office space as well as computing power, where it was business as usual.
After the bombing of the World Trade Center,Yasuda Bank & Trust, the U.S. subsidiary of Yasuda Trust and Banking Company Ltd., headquartered in Tokyo, was cut off from its computers and data storage systems. SunGard was alerted and successfully got the bank up and running in New York one day later. "We had tested the disaster scenario at SunGard just a month and a half before the bombing, " recalls Brian Casey, Vice President of MIS at Yasuda. "We were confident it would work - and it did."
The StorageWorks solution
Investment protection
"StorageWorks price/performance and multiple platform support ensures that we make the most of our storage investment," says Cornelius. "When you buy as much storage as we do, price/performance is very important. Compaq StorageWorks lets us leverage our budget dollars while providing us with excellent reliability and overall performance."
Year 2000 preparation
"Companies that are unsure about the ability of their missioncritical applications to weather the Year 2000 debacle are very interested in our ability to actually take them through the transition," explains Cornelius. "We install their software, turn the clock up on our Compaq AlphaServer 8000 and StorageWorks subsystems to a few minutes before 2000, and then test it before, during and after. This way, they know exactly what is going to happen and how to prepare for it."
Flexibility
"We rely heavily on Compaq StorageWorks because of its extensive multiplatform support and flexibility," Cornelius stresses. "As you can imagine, we slice and dice up our systems on a daily basis to support different customers. StorageWorks' modularity and ability to reconfigure RAID arrays on the fly from one centralized location makes us a very efficient and effective service provider."
Multivendor support
"We are customer-driven, so we have to span the entire realm of platforms, operating systems, and revision levels," acknowledges Cornelius, "We have everything under the heavens, from IBM mainframes to all the midrange systems on down to PC LANs. StorageWorks supports them all."
Manageability
"The StorageWorks Command Console lets me reconfigure online and on demand from a very easy-to-use GUI. With many of the other storage vendors, you have to call up their field office and have them do it for you. The StorageWorks Command Console gives us full control over the partitioning of our storage when we need it," says Cornelius.
Migration
"The UltraSCSI solutions provide us with the first step toward Fibre Channel," Cornelius concludes. "That's important, because we are beginning to receive a lot of inquiries about this technology from our customers. Fortunately, we can rely on Compaq and its outstanding line of storage solutions to keep us on the cutting edge."
Call us
To learn how Compaq StorageWorks has helped other companies to achieve their goals, and can help you reach yours, call your authorized representative or visit us at: http://www.compaq.com/storageworks
Compaq believes the information in this publication is accurate as of its publication date; such information is subject to change without notice. Compaq is not responsible for inadvertent errors. Compaq conducts its business in a manner that conserves the environment and protects the safety and health of its employees, customers, and the community.
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