Posts Tagged ‘cloud recovery’

Why Test Management is Critical: @SunGardAS Heads to DRJ Spring World 2012 (#drjspring)

Posted: March 23, 2012, 1:23 pm

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!

Links you need to know:
Register for the mobile recovery unit tour
Download your free business continuity toolkit

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.

Tags: cloud recovery, Managed Recovery Program, MRP, R2C, Recover2Cloud, recovery planning, Recovery Test

Posted in Availability Services, Disaster Recovery, Mobile Recovery Services, Recovery-as-a-Service

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SunGard Mobile Recovery Unit Multi-City Tour – Kicks-Off at DRJ Spring World 2012

Posted: March 22, 2012, 10:31 am

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 Tours
Tuesday, March 27^th, 10:00 AM – 3:00 PM
Register here for the Mobile Recovery Unit tour!

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.

Download your free Business Continuity Toolkit now:

Disaster Recovery Planning – A Business Imperative
Why Disaster Recovery Readiness is Important
Five Reasons Why Disaster Recovery Plans Fail
Mastering Recovery – A Comprehensive Guide

Tags: Business Continuity Awareness Week, cloud recovery, Disaster Preparedness, disaster recovery, high availability, Managed Recovery Program, Mobile Recovery Services, R2C, Recovery Test, server replication

Posted in Availability Services, Disaster Recovery, Mobile Recovery Services, Recovery-as-a-Service

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SunGard Availability Services is Silicon Valley-bound for Cloud Connect Santa Clara #ccevent – Stop by our booth to win a MacBook® Air!

Posted: February 1, 2012, 1:13 pm

We’re escaping the cold, wintery weather at our headquarters in Philadelphia and heading to Silicon Valley for Cloud Connect Santa Clara (#ccevent) February 14-15, 2012. Cloud Connect brings together the entire cloud eco-system to better understand the transformations cloud is bringing to the Enterprise.

As a Platinum sponsor, we’ll be setting up shop at booth #414 where SunGard representatives will be available to discuss our cloud offerings, including our Enterprise Cloud Services and cloud-recovery services. Stop by our booth during the expo for a scratch off ticket* where you could win an Apple® MacBook® Air, Apple® iPad® 2 or a $5 Starbucks® gift card. Every card is a winner, so be sure to stop by. We’ll also be attending several sessions throughout the duration of the conference where we’ll be live tweeting, posting to our Facebook wall and shooting video in our booth. Follow us for the play-by-play!

Prior to the conference, join us for Happy Hour at Birk’s Restaurant from 5:30 – 7:00 pm on Monday, February 13^th. REGISTER HERE if you plan to attend Happy Hour. Registration is required. (Get Directions to Birk’s Restaurant from the Convention Center).

Also on the schedule this year, SunGard Availability Services will be delivering two presentations during the conference. The first session will examine the increasing need for private cloud solutions and things to consider when evaluating a private cloud solution. Session details below:

Taking a Private Path to the Cloud
Date: Tuesday, February 14, 2012, 1:15 PM-2:15 PM
Presenter: David Ayers, senior product manager of Cloud services at SunGard Availability Services
Location: Grand Ballroom H
Description: Enterprises are actively exploring cloud solutions to help drive down overall IT costs and increase operational efficiency, all while minimizing risks and reducing complexity. However, the vendor landscape is filled with public solutions not always suited to Enterprise needs for security, compliance, service levels and high availability. This session will discuss the growing need for private cloud and the different aspects to consider when evaluating private cloud solutions.

The second presentation, slated for Wednesday, will review the top 5 considerations for cloud-based recovery.

Recovering Applications to Cloud: Top 5 Considerations for Raising Service Levels with Tiered Recovery Services
Date: Wednesday, February 15, 2012, 12:05 PM-12:25 PM
Presenter: Ram Shanmugam, senior director of product management at SunGard Availability Services
Location: Cloud Solutions Theater
Description: In this session, SunGard will offer an inside perspective on the top 5 considerations for cloud-based recovery, which are: analyzing applications by business value, selecting modern data movement into the cloud, automating recovery steps, using enterprise-class cloud platforms, and scoping network requirements. SunGard will also provide an overview of its Recover2Clouds services suite [Check out this VIDEO], which packages modern data movement for tiered recovery benefits.

Stop back here for updates during and after the conference, follow us on Twitter, and don’t forget to stop by booth #414 for your chance to win an Apple® MacBook® Air, Apple® iPad® 2 or $5 Starbucks gift card. See you in Santa Clara!

- – - – -

*Entry Card must be scratched-off in front of SunGard representative at Booth #414 during the Expo hours of Cloud Connect 2012 to be valid.

Contest Terms and Conditions
One card per person. Contest is limited to residents of the United States and the District of Columbia. No purchase is necessary to enter. SunGard employees are not eligible to win. Chances of winning Apple MacBook Air 1:500, Apple IPad 2 2:500, Starbucks Gift Card 497:500.

©2012 SunGard and the SunGard logo are trademarks and registered trademarks of SunGard Data Systems Inc. or its subsidiaries in the U.S. and other countries. All other trade names are trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.

Tags: best cloud computing, cloud, cloud computing, cloud computing provider, cloud connect, cloud recovery, security in cloud computing, top cloud computing

Posted in cloud-based recovery, IaaS, IT and the Cloud

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A Cloud Recovery Platform in Operation: Detailed Walk-Through

Posted: November 29, 2011, 9:37 pm

In the consideration of cloud-based recovery services, organizations need to understand more details of how cloud platforms are implemented for recovery. In this blog entry, I walk through the details of how SunGard has implemented a portion of its cloud recovery platform in support of the Recover2Cloud for Server Replication service.

Understanding a Virtual Data Center (VDC)

Within the cloud, one of the considerations for recovery is to ensure secure access to protected data. SunGard implements a dedicated VDC in the cloud using dedicated firewall protection for each client. VPN connection is established between the firewall and a firewall in the client’s production location.

Within the targeted cloud, there is also a dedicated live virtual machine (VM) for each customer. This VM receives the replicated data, and writes the data as dormant VMDK files.

At time of disaster, SunGard recovery automation launches the VMDK files to bring the VMs live within the VDC. This is done using server processing capacity which is allocated on-demand within the cloud. SunGard provides public IP addresses for those VMs which are public Internet facing. SunGard also provides multiple VLANs for the recovered VMs. All of this is done behind an additional dedicated virtual firewall, to ensure secure access to the recovered application environment.

Failover At Time Of Test (ATOT)

Organizations require the capability to test failover without having to shut down their production environment. This avoids testing in off-hours, such as overnight and on holidays.

To accommodate this requirement, SunGard implements patent-pending sandbox testing using a dedicated test VDC which is separate from the recovery VDC in the SunGard cloud implementation. The basic idea is that prior to test, SunGard instantiates a virtual firewall, creates the required VLANs, sets up the firewall policies between the test VDC and the required servers that will be recovered for test.

An organization working with SunGard can then select the recovery points based on the test goals, which can be either to test crash-consistency of the data or application consistency.

When recovery is triggered, the dormant VMDKs go live behind the newly instantiated virtual firewall. The VMs are assigned appropriate IP addresses, VLANs and port groups as part of the recovery process. The order in which servers are restarted is configured and automated as part of the recovery process, as well, to ensure that the interdependent applications environment is restarted quickly and correctly without risk of human error.

Once the recovery is complete, organizations can use a VPN client to connect to the sandbox VDC test environment. This enables remote test. Remote administrators can even choose use this method as a better means to test for OS or service pack maintenance upgrades.

When organizations have a hybrid environment, they can also connect to hot site or recovered workgroup environments along with the VDC.

How Secure is the Cloud?

SunGard implements enterprise-class security as part of the recovery cloud platform. A Recover2Cloud VDC looks like a remote office network to a client, accessible using secure IPsec VPN tunnel connections. At network layer 2, every R2C customer VDC is isolated from other VDCs in the cloud by using separate VLANs. At network layer 3, each customer VDC is securely protected using dedicated firewalls.

Tags: cloud recovery, high availability, R2C, Recover2Cloud, Secure Cloud Recovery, Secure Networking, server replication, VDC, Virtual Data Center

Posted in Recovery-as-a-Service

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Cloud-Based Recovery: A Preview of One Organization’s Experience

Posted: November 21, 2011, 10:38 pm

The move from tape as a basis for recovery, to replication as is provided in the SunGard Recover2Cloud for Server Replication service, offers many benefits. Benefits include:

Faster recovery time objectives (RTOs) – recovery is guaranteed by SunGard Recover2Cloud service at sub-4 hours for the entire mission-critical applications environment that is protected
Improved recovery point objectives (RPOs) — offered at near-zero with Server Replication capabilities
Transformed recovery testing — avoiding the common costs and burdens, such as lengthy time of test, tape transport and loading, problems with not having enough time to complete test

Yet organizations sometimes seem to hesitate in adopting modern recovery methods. In an upcoming webinar scheduled for 11.30, SunGard will interview two professionals at Acacia Federal Savings Bank who have made the transition to replication-based recovery with success. Acacia will share their experiences in the webinar first-hand, to help other organizations in evaluating the SunGard Recover2Cloud service.

Some of the insights which attendees of the upcoming webinar can expect, include:

How replication-based recovery compares to tape-based
Why SunGard’s patent-pending service implementation completely transformed Acacia’s test process
How replication complements Acacia’s backup-to-tape strategy

Interested to attend and ask your own questions? You can register now for the live event:

Anantomy of a Cloud-Based Recovery
November 30, 2011
10 am Pacific/ 1pm Eastern

In addition to speaking with Acacia representatives, a demonstration of the Recover2Cloud Server Replication product will also be offered during the webinar.

Tags: Acacia Federal, cloud recovery, Customer Experience, Live Event, Modern Data Protection, R2C, Recover2Cloud, server replication

Posted in Recovery-as-a-Service

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How Do You Evaluate Cloud Recovery Services? Try a Virtual Event

Posted: November 3, 2011, 10:21 pm

Next week on Nov 9, Information Week and Network Computing host a virtual event called “Virtualization Anywhere.” At this event, sponsoring vendors will provide information about their products and services — and how they can help you to address challenges with managing virtual systems and infrastructures. An online virtual event emulates in-person trade shows, but are far more convenient and are usually free to attend.

If you’ve never attended a virtual event like this one, then you’ll be interested to know that each vendor is available in a virtual booth. You navigate an online map which emulates a typical event show floor, and you decide which vendor booths you would like to visit. When you visit, you can pick up digital copies of product literature. And, most importantly, you can chat in real-time with vendor representatives.

In addition to the virtual show floor, virtual events also feature a series of live webinars which you can attend — emulating “main-tent” style presentations which occur at in-person events.

SunGard Availability Services is a platinum sponsor at next week’s event, and we hope you come to see us there! Our speaker, Ramanan Shanmugam, is Sr Director of Product Management for the Recover2Cloud suite of services. Ram will cover the top five considerations for raising service levels with tiered recovery services and cloud services, with insights learned from SunGard’s track record with providing disaster recovery services for over 30 years.

Interested in learning more about the event? See the event web site, and register to attend today!

If you’re busy on Nov 9 and you cannot attend, check this blog site after the event. We will share the links to Ram’s recorded presentation following the event.

Tags: cloud recovery, Information Week, Network Computing, presentation, R2C, Ramanan Shanmugam, Recover2Cloud, virtual event

Posted in Recovery-as-a-Service

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Why Focus on Recovery-as-a-Service? Solving Mission-Critical High Availability and Recovery with Cloud Services

Posted: October 17, 2011, 8:00 pm

—–> by Kelly Baig

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:

Cloud-based recovery
Cloud versus virtual recovery
Hybrid recovery
Recovery planning
Root cause problems which disrupt recovery – and how to address them
Modern data protection as a basis for improved recovery
Online backup and recovery to the cloud
Real-time server replication as the basis for critical application availability
Vaulting based on deduplication storage
Planning for workforce continuity

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.

Tags: cloud recovery, high availability, Modern Data Protection, Online Backup and Recovery, recovery planning, Recovery-as-a-Service, Replication, Vaulting

Posted in Availability Services, Recovery-as-a-Service

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Gartner Cites High Cost of Disaster Recovery Testing as a Critical Obstacle

Posted: August 18, 2011, 12:41 pm

At June’s Infrastructure Summit, Gartner’s John Morency went on the record about the high cost of recovery testing. He remarked that most organizations with whom John speaks report averaging $30-40K per test. Some even estimated spending as much as $100K on a single disaster recovery test exercise.

That’s an enormous expense under any circumstance. With that type of cost, it’s no wonder than more organizations report putting off recovery test walk-throughs, and incomplete testing at “best effort” levels.

Also, when recovery testing is best perceived as being “insurance” against a “smoking hole” style of disaster, then increasing the effort and resources put against it seems hard to justify.

The key to unlocking better recovery test practices requires a combination of things. First, organizations need to redefine the purpose of recovery testing – to include finding technology gaps and opportunities for process improvement in their production environment. Second, organizations can also benefit from a closer working relationship with their cloud recovery service provider. Demanding that the provider step up to assume responsibility for recovery – backed by contractual guarantees – is one way to make sure that recovery testing is a manageable burden assumed by the provider, at a predictable and manageable expense.

In fact, in most cases, taking this approach can substantially reduce an organization’s recovery testing costs. Elimination of staff travel and expenses to the recovery site, and time out of office, is one obvious savings. Additionally, however, reducing the guesswork – and relying on recovery experts – can not only reduce costs but speed test and increase the value of testing.

How can recovery tests benefit organizations in their production environment? These are some of the benefits which SunGard Recovery Services customers report experiencing first hand:

Finding previously unknown patches to apply in production environments as well as at the recovery site – improves applications performance and operations
Improving change management processes at the production site – asset and license management, change control, and related process improvement can improve customer service and improve IT budget control
Using runbooks created for recovery for smaller-scale recovery to overcome local outages – improves application availability
Redesigning protection strategies and technology implementations to better support recovery objectives – can streamline and lower the complexity and cost of protection systems

For more on how SunGard can assist your disaster recovery test efforts – and make them more valuable to your business – read about our latest Managed Recovery Program service.

Tags: change management, cloud recovery, disaster recovery, recovery testing

Posted in Uncategorized

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