Check out the latest issue of our customer newsletter, the INSIDER, a place for IT professionals to explore the latest news, trends and tips. This month’s edition features a look at the challenges facing IT availability experts in 2013, lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy, a new Managed Private Cloud service, and a quick survey on IT issues facing your company in the new year.
Our feature story outlines the key availability lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy. Companies of all sizes faced incredible IT recovery challenges due to unprecedented flooding, prolonged power outages, extensive property damage and logistical problems caused by wide-scale road closures. Learn more about the lessons SunGard learned in working with its customers before, during and after Sandy.
To start off 2013 on the right foot, we take a look at the major IT availability issues facing companies in the year ahead. One thing is quite clear: IT resiliency will be more critical than ever before. The reason? Businesses today have a low tolerance for downtime, and it is getting lower all the time. Read on to find out what you need to know face a new year filled with IT challenges and changes.
SunGard Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS) deliver world-class IT infrastructure and operational support. Now, in addition to multi-tenant cloud services, SunGard offers dedicated, private cloud environments for applications requiring higher levels of protection. Get the details here.
What availability topics are of interest to you? What are the top issues your business faces in 2013? What topics would you like to see us address in future communications to you? Take our brief survey and let us know what you think.
In our latest customer spotlight, we take a look at McKesson Corporation, who quickly met its deadline for product rollout and delivered a highly reliable disaster recovery solution to its customers as part of its software-as-a-service offering for physician practices.
Finally, we bring you the latest news coverage on SunGard and an overview of events coming in the next three months.
Stay on top of the latest SunGard news with the INSIDER, found here on the SunGard website each month.
Check out the latest edition of our monthly newsletter, the INSIDER, a place for IT professionals to explore the latest news, trends and tips. This month’s issue features articles and videos focused on security. We’ve addressed such topics as recovering from disasters like Superstorm Sandy, to safe identity management for your workforce, to secure change management and cloud application testing.
This month’s Recovery Services video focuses on Workforce Continuity/Workplace recovery in the face of disaster – a timely topic in the aftermath of Superstorm Sandy. Another well-timed article details exactly what steps SunGard takes in times of natural disasters like Hurricane Sandy. What exactly does SunGard do for its customers when faced with impending crises?
For the CIOs in our audience, we spoke with SunGard’s Atif Malik about the importance of executive dashboards for CIOs as a way to achieve greater efficiencies in their data centers. We’ve also got a few new services to tell you about — the Customer Configuration Repository – designed to revolutionize change management, as well as a new security solution called Single Sign On, available for all SunGard customers.
Our Cloud trend series concludes with a brief look at what happens once you’ve developed and tested an application in the cloud.
Finally, we recap SunGard’s involvement in the latest events and conferences, including the Gartner Data Center conference and our Business Continuity Software International User Group meeting.
Stay on top of the latest SunGard news with the INSIDER, found here on the SunGard website each month. You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter here.
Check out latest edition of the monthly SunGard Availability Services INSIDER newsletter, a place for IT professionals to explore the latest news, trends and tips. This month’s issue features articles and videos designed to keep you up to date on cloud computing, disaster planning, customer events and more.
Our video series on Recovery Services continues with a deeper look at the strategies behind Managed Recovery Planning, SunGard’s approach to taking the pain out of application recovery for complex IT environments. Another series, our five-part serial on Cloud Computing trends, explores distributed block storage – one of the biggest changes on the cloud computing horizon.
For customers with unique availability needs, we sat down with Dominick Paul, National VP of Strategic Solutions, to learn all about the SunGard value-add. Check out his video interview here.
With the summer season behind us and the first few weeks of fall starting to cool us down, the time is right to dust off your disaster recovery plans. Finally, we take a closer look at the exciting array of fall events coming up for SunGard customers. There are multiple opportunities to connect with members of the SunGard team this fall – we can’t wait to see you!
Stay on top of the latest SunGard news with the INSIDER, found here on the SunGard website each month. You can subscribe to our monthly newsletter here.
My first VMworld ever is over and I am zombie-tired. The four days of driving to San Francisco’s Moscone Center and back (40 miles each way), plus the constant scramble between the exhibit hall and the education hall, plus the effort to cram all kinds of VMware knowledge into my wee little brain, have me plum tuckered out. But, as depleted as I am, I’m also a lot smarter from the experience.
I attended sessions on how CIOs can run IT like a business, on cloud-aware security, and on running mission-critical applications in the cloud. But I think the most valuable session for me was one I hadn’t planned on attending. Yup, on my first day there, I was just wandering around, trying to get my bearings, when I happened upon a session titled, quite simply, “Disaster Recovery.” So I trusted to serendipity, stumbled in, plunked down in an open seat, and started listening.
It was a discussion group wherein the leader, VMware’s Ken Werneburg, asked a series of questions to which the participants could respond by hitting a letter on a hand-held remote device. As we responded, our answers were aggregated in real-time and flashed up on the screen in front. Here are some of the nuggets I got out of that session:
81% of the people in the room (about 50 people) operate a production environment that is 51-10% virtualized.
Only 6% had ever gone through a full failover, while 18% have had to fail over a portion of their environment, 30% have tested DR but never gone through a true DR scenario, another 30% had never had to do any DR whatsoever (including testing), while the remaining 16% had an outage and could not recover at all.
55% of the people in the room have not looked at DR in the cloud, but think it sounds intriguing. 15% had looked at it but written it off, 10% think it’s fantastic, and the remaining 20% are not interested at all.
50% of the people in the room want to test DR twice a year, while 30% wanted to test quarterly. The remaining 20% felt that once a year was more than enough.
40% of the people in the room had performed a Business Impact Analysis and arrived at a cost per hour of downtime; 43% did not have the time, money, or people to do this, and the remaining 17% had never even heard of it.
As for SunGard’s participation in VMworld sessions, our VP of Recovery Services Product Management, Michael de la Torre, co-presented a session with VMware called, “DR to the Cloud: A Service Provider’s Perspective.” The room was packed as Michael highlighted the six factors that affect the design of your company’s DR plan (RTO/RPO, size of environment, complexity, performance, regulations, and program management). In particular, Michael also talked about the difficulty of recovering a hybrid physical and virtual environment on a do-it-yourself basis, an issue that no one is really thinking about and that we at SunGard have brought to the forefront of late. (Check out our videos below that explain the primary challenges of recovering complex hybrid environments).
Because no one has really talked about these challenges before – and THAT’s because the industry has not really thought about what happens when you go to recover production environments that are increasingly heterogeneous mixes of applications, platforms, databases, hypervisors, and storage – it has felt a little like we’ve been pointing out that the Emperor isn’t wearing any clothes. Especially since the prevailing wisdom is, “Virtualization makes disaster recovery ridiculously easy.” So I felt particularly validated when someone asked the question of VMware, “Will you be releasing any products that also address the recovery of physical servers?” To which the response was, effectively, “No…just get as virtualized as possible so you don’t have to deal with that.” Hmm. I’m not sure we’re ever going to get to a 100% virtualized world, quite honestly, and until then, virtualization will continue to bring another layer of complexity to the recovery problem.
In the meantime, I’ll look forward to hearing your comments on what you learned at VMworld, and to attending again next year.
As companies embrace the fact that every business is a contender on the Internet, and every company is subject to the same types of vulnerabilities and attacks, they must all realize their network security postures must be advanced and robust. This means that a company of six employees must have network security protections which mirror those of an organization of 6,000 employees. As cost-prohibitive as it sounds, there are ways that non-enterprise-level businesses can implement a security strategy that is comprehensive and effective in protecting themselves from attack just as successfully as enterprise customers.
One such solution is called Unified Threat Management (UTM). Essentially a UTM is a single platform architecture shared by multiple security applications such as firewall, intrusion detection/intrusion prevention (IDS/IPS), and URL filtering. The single most important advantage of adopting a UTM is the lower cost to purchase and manage this solution. Instead of having to acquire multiple discreet security solutions, you only purchase one (licensing varies based on vendor and security applications needed). Most UTM vendors also offer a centralized interface, so that you can manage all the different applications, create policies and enforce rules from a single location. A UTM is not the panacea for network attacks or addressing compliance requirements, but it does combine multiple security applications in a footprint that is affordable and robust enough to build some level of confidence in your network.
Knowing that there are solutions out there to help companies of all sizes remain protected can be a relief, but a certain amount of knowledge around network security is required to ensure that you are maximizing your security posture against your IT investment. For most mid-market organizations, this level of expertise does not exist and the amount of money needed to hire a security expert is not in the budget. Managed Security Service Providers (MSSPs) are a preferred alternative in these situations. MSSPs not only manage the security solutions for you, they also can install, configure, maintain, and update the platform at a price that is well within most budgets. These offerings are usually offered as a monthly subscription service over a two, three and five year agreement. Most MSSPs are security certified, and will have intimate knowledge on the security application that they will be managing for you. Not only do you have this security expert as an extension of your company, but you also have this security support 24 hours a day, seven days a week. And like the cybercriminals, these certified security specialists focus all their time on network security, but instead protect from attacks.
If your organization is looking to improve on its security posture, UTM solutions provide a comprehensive suite of security applications to build a stronger security infrastructure. If you are constrained due to resources or expertise, a managed service around UTM would provide you with a robust security platform, and the certified security expertise to manage it for you.
Security is not a checkbox for addressing compliance. Selecting default within the security applications does not provide you with the levels of security needed to protect yourself from the cybercrimes. It is the combination of strong security applications and expert knowledge on security that protect you and your network. A Managed UTM offering can help get you to that level of security confidence.
The Internet, over the last two decades, has helped create a different way of interacting, transferring knowledge, and conducting business. It has helped create a level playing field in which companies of any size, and from anywhere in the world, can compete for a consumer’s business. This has also introduced a completely new form of risk– network security.
Network security has become one of the fastest growing sectors within IT because of the growing number of cybercriminals. This black-market has designed a business model where the focus is on breaking into businesses via the Internet. The intent is mainly to exploit their targets for money: whether it’s through holding a company’s network hostage via a DDoS attack, or stealing company data to sell to someone else. The level of success achieved by cybercriminals has grown to scale so that it has become a volume business which has been estimated to be in the billions of dollars annually. This does not bode well for organizations, especially those in the mid-market space.
As taught in Economics 101, economies of scale is good for the business achieving it, and dangerous to those who are not shielded from this success. Initially cybercriminals were looking for and attacking organizations with large brands, solid reputations, and deep pockets. Attention was not given to the smaller organizations whose transactions over the Internet were considered low volume. Now that these cybercriminals have achieved a volume-based business, they are able to scale their attack to many companies of all sizes. Would you rather sell one product for one hundred dollars or one thousand products for one dollar? This is where cybercrime has moved. Instead of hunting for the whales, they are casting large nets into the water. Instead of attacking and breaching one large company, they are attacking and breaching hundreds if not thousands of organizations – many of whom do not even know the breach has occurred.
The other change is that these attacks are no longer immediate and noticeable. The level of sophistication inherent in today’s security landscape is so intricate that cybercriminals can lay dormant for weeks or months, or slowly collect bits of data at levels which are hardly detectible. This does not bode well for any company, but especially for the small and medium-sized organization. Fortunately, there are many affordable tools and services out there to help SMBs monitor and prevent these attacks. I will discuss these resources in my next post.
We have a jam-packed schedule at DRJ Spring World 2012 (#drjspring) in Orlando next week, but unfortunately that doesn’t include a ride on Space Mountain or a show at SeaWorld. Instead, we’ll be located in booth 415-419 visiting with conference attendees sharing our expertise on why test management is crucial to your overall business continuity management strategy and exploring the three pillars of operational resilience and how to achieve it. SunGard is a silver sponsor of DRJ Spring World. Come by and visit us!
We also have several presentations planned this year in addition to the kick-off of our Mobile Recovery Unit Multi-City Tour. Stop by any of the presentations for a chance to win an iPad! Details below.
This is Not a Test: A How-to Guide for Effective Plan Testing in the Real-World Time: Monday; 12:15 – 1:15 PM and 5:30 – 6:30 PM, Tuesday; 12:15 – 1:15 PM Location: Coronado A
Kelley Ashton, senior product specialist/trainer and Tracey Forbes, vice president software business development, will share insight into SunGard’s Test Management solution for streamlining and improving plan testing. You’ll learn how this powerful new dedicated BC/DR test management platform can track and validate BC/DR plan tests quickly and easily.
Reality Check: Experiences in Using Cloud-Based Recovery to Facilitate Your Disaster Planning in the Real-World Time: Monday and Tuesday;12:15 – 1:15 PM Location: Coronado B
Vasu Subbiah, senior director product management, will explore several recent case studies on declaration events experienced by our customers in 2011. Whether its business continuity or cloud recovery, IT departments are asked to enhance data capabilities while reducing cost. SunGard Availability Services is here to help.
Mobile Recovery Unit Tours Time: Tuesday;10:00 AM – 3:00 PM Location: Parking Lot A, outside the Veracruz Exhibit Hall
Stop by the mobile recovery unit for a tour and special presentation to learn how Mobile Recovery Services can pull a workgroup facility right up to your door or, anywhere you need it. In addition, weather forecast service provider, Impact Weather, will be providing a 2012 Hurricane Forecast at 10am and 2pm in the mobile unit. Get mobile recovery unit tour details!
Operational Resilience – What is it, and How Can You Achieve it? Time: Tuesday;10:45 AM General Session 6 Location: General Session Location
Business Continuity professionals are asked to make the organization ‘resilient’ – but what does that mean? How do you measure it? And how do you create a program that spans the enterprise without being perceived as the ‘DR’ team? This presentation explores the three pillars of operational resilience defined as business continuity management, information security, and IT operations – and offers a powerful approach for focusing on operational risk exposures, identifying measurable improvement, and driving operational resilience, so that leaders can have greater certainty, lower risk, and better-managed costs. Presented by Christopher Burgher CISSP, PMP, CISA, principal SunGard Consulting Services.
Better recovery planning begins with essential DR planning resources. A strong recovery program requires understanding how business needs determine recovery objectives. Download your free Business Continuity Toolkit now for the resources you need to get started.
Be sure to follow SunGard Availability Services during the conference for live updates –Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.
In just few days, we’ll be headed to DRJ Spring World 2012 (#drjspring) – the premier event for decision makers in every aspect of business continuity and disaster recovery. Its’ 46th conference will offer industry insights and trends, best practices and real-world examples through its’ 45 sessions, 12 workshops and 9 keynotes. SunGard Availability Services is a silver sponsor of this conference and we’ll be located in booth 415-419.
We have an exciting agenda planned for the conference this year; in particular we’ll be kicking off a multi-city tour of our state-of-the-art Mobile Recovery Unit! Severe weather in early 2012 has elevated the importance of disaster planning for many organizations in the Southeast region of the United States. To help minimize the impact of hurricanes, floods, power outages and tornadoes on your business operations, we’ll be going on the road with our Mobile Recovery Unit to bring you the latest best practices for strengthening your Disaster Preparedness Plan.
Stop by the mobile recovery unit on Tuesday, March 27 for a tour and special presentation to learn how Mobile Recovery Services can pull a workgroup facility right up to your door or, anywhere you need it. Our modern fleet includes up to 350 work seats per unit, equipped with state-of-the-art HP dual-core workstations, Avaya VoIP telephone systems, and Internet connectivity and printer access. Mobile datacenters come provisioned with the custom equipment you require to recover your datacenter. In addition, weather forecast service provider, Impact Weather, will be providing a 2012 Hurricane Forecast at 10am and 2pm in the mobile unit.
The mobile recovery unit will be located at Disney Coronado Springs Resort, Parking Lot A outside the Veracruz Exhibit Hall.
Mobile Recovery Unit Presentations Disaster Event Trends 2011-2012 , 10:00 – 10:30 AM and 3:00 – 3:30 PM
Be sure to follow SunGard Availability Services during the conference for live updates –Twitter, Facebook, LinkedIn and YouTube.
Essential DR Planning Resources
Check out this new Business Continuity Toolkit containing a suite of materials to help you develop solid plans for any disaster or interruption. Get powerful insights you can use today to build a more resilient organization.
Welcome to our new blog site, focused on Recovery-as-a-Service! At this site, you will find regular commentary from SunGard Availability Services (AS) recovery experts. Our experts include SunGard product managers, product developers, and recovery operations personnel — all with specialized experience on a range of topics and technologies which affect recovery.
Recovery topics that you can anticipate appearing here in the upcoming months, include:
SunGard AS is widely known for our superior track record and experience in managing disaster recovery on behalf of our clients. What we are less known for, however, are our modern online services which go beyond disaster recovery to solve day-to-day availability challenges for critical applications and data.
Our recovery solutions come with best-of-breed technology components. Also, our solution approach is to enable our clients to attain their availability objectives — both Recovery Point Objectives (RPOs) for data and Recovery Time Objectives (RTOs) for applications – by being expert in how to make your choice of recovery infrastructure technologies operate in concert, to support your tiered applications environment at an optimized level of investment.
In this forum, our team looks forward to providing added visibility for you to a full range of availability solutions which are available to your organization working with SunGard recovery experts. Watch for our frequent updates and please add your voice through comments and questions.
Check out the latest issue of our customer newsletter, the INSIDER, a place for IT professionals to explore the latest news, trends and tips. This month’s edition features a look at the challenges facing IT availability experts in 2013, lessons learned from Hurricane Sandy, a new Managed Private Cloud service, and a quick survey on IT issues facing your company in the new year.
