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Colocation requirements can no longer be expressed in terms of square footage. That’s because the amount of physical space required to house colocated infrastructure is in large part determined by the power and cooling demands of the hardware. This white paper examines the relationship between wattage and floor space in a data center, and demonstrates the calculations an IT organization can perform in order to determine its power requirements—because only then can it determine how much square footage is truly necessary. |
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“Colocation is all about economies of scale, focusing on your core competencies as a business and letting someone else handle the data center aspect,” says Joe Sullivan, senior director, colocation product management with SunGard Availability Services. “From a financial perspective, it allows you to take a large cash outlay or capital expense and convert that into an operating expense.”
Smart Business spoke with Sullivan about how to decide if colocation is right for you, and what to look for in a colocation provider. |
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A growing number of businesses are using cloud computing to access resources over the Internet, store data and run applications. However, in abandoning traditional on-premise computing and data storage for a cloud-based solution, many companies fear what will happen if the remote data center housing the cloud experiences its own crash. |
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If a disaster struck your company, could you recover? Do you have a place to store your data so it’s safe and accessible, and do you have a way to recover it after a disaster without bankrupting the company?
Investing in redundant infrastructure and hiring specialized staff to protect yourself is hard to justify in today’s business climate, especially when the rising cost of disaster recovery pushes other critical projects to the back burner. But the answer may be in the cloud, says Ram Shanmugam, senior director of product management for Recovery Services at SunGard Availability Services. |
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Recovering from a disaster hinges on accurate and current disaster recovery procedures. Many organizations fail to recover or take longer to recover because these procedures are not accurate or not current. Production Information Technology environments are constantly changing. This means that an effective change management practice that includes a process for updating recovery procedures and recovery configurations is a crucial component to successful restoration. Changes in the production environment happen daily, impacting recovery. As a result, the recovery plan must be kept up to date with day-to-day production changes. |
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| This Analyst Report will analysis Cloud-based managed recovery services and how they are a natural follow-on to cloud-based backup and how implementing disaster recovery in and from the cloud promises lower costs. |
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Cloud computing is being rapidly embraced across all industries. But this massive shift from local hardware to web-based resources is not risk- and hazard-free.
Concerns about security are running high. And questions about business relevance and resiliency remain. This white paper covers strategies for addressing those questions. |
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Recovery-as-a-Service (RaaS) has been available for some time, and has leveraged a number of infrastructure options and recovery platforms. Many of these options have provided a recovery solution that is flexible, scalable, and secure. And in some cases, service providers offer fully managed solutions with the expertise to support heterogeneous IT environments. |
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Most organizations lack three fundamental components essential to managing recovery from a disaster: continually updated recovery processes, staff availability for test and recovery, and on-staff recovery expertise. Finding the right service provider with the experience necessary to deliver effective recovery management cover that gap effectively and efficiently. |
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PCI DSS Requirements 6, 10 and 11 can be the most costly and resource-intensive, as they require log management, vulnerability assessment, and intrusion detection. Fortunately, new service-based solutions can now deliver these capabilities at a fraction of the cost of traditional software or appliance-based solutions. These solutions are changing the way that IT compliance and security solutions are designed, delivered, and utilized. This paper illustrates 10 ways you can use these new solutions to demonstrate compliance with PCI DSS 1.2. |
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Deep in the halls of many IT organizations lives a worrier: a professional paid to assume the worst, plan for disasters, and contemplate the unthinkable. They are the Disaster Recovery Planner. They may prefer “contingency” or “business continuity” as part of their identity, but their role is clear: document what needs to happen to keep the business running and teach the rest of us our roles. SunGard Continuity Management Solution (CMS) is a suite of software tools and best practices that help automate and maintain a functional and auditable DR plan. |
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| Businesses can move from feeling BCM pressure to experiencing BCM stability when they search for a vendor that offers these three legs of support: company strength, comprehensive software, and customer service. |
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The “meaningful use” of electronic medical records, mandated by the Healthcare Information Technology for Economic and Clinical Health Act, is changing the nature of healthcare across the nation. The danger is that many healthcare IT organizations do not realize exactly how deep that change needs to be. |
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When it comes to building a business continuity management (BCM) program that’s complete, current, and compliant, there is no substitute for BCM software. But the benefits of a good BCM program extend beyond just using an automated tool. Leveraging the right BCM software and services provider also makes real business sense, before, during and after business interruption. |
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Assembling an effective plan for a cloud infrastructure is paramount. When organizations put the right strategic pieces in place the result is maximum return on investment and an ability to achieve competitive differentiation. |
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The benefits of cloud are transformative because, by replacing in-house infrastructure with a scalable and efficient service, they allow an IT organization to move out of a functional role based on procurement and maintenance and toward a leadership role founded on guiding and participating in core business initiatives. |
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Businesses today operate in an environment where significant application downtime and data loss lead easily to lost productivity, lost revenue and lost customers. A better backup and recovery process is within online reach of your business. |
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An organization’s data is its lifeblood; productivity is only as good as the availability of the data. That’s why, in an effort to maximize productivity and minimize risk, organizations increasingly are placing at least a portion of their infrastructure in colocation data centers. The timing is right for it, too. In recent years, the total cost of colocating in data centers has dropped significantly. Even for small businesses, colocation is no longer a pie-in-the-sky objective. |
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Whether it is data loss, corruption, or even a simple lack of data access, an organization needs to be confident that it can recover within a pre-determined time to avoid lost business. Data loss is not an option for companies of any size and, given the pressures IT organizations face from year to year, recovery processes often need a makeover just to keep pace. SunGard’s Secure2Disk portfolio addresses everything from SMBs to the enterprise; whether leveraging an existing data protection solution or implemented as a replacement, Secure2Disk offers solutions for companies of all sizes to address their data protection challenges. |
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IT functions in business are complicated enough. For the business majority, adding data protection expertise as a core competency simply does not make fiscal sense. Turning that function over to the leading solution in online backup and recovery—EVault—will save time, money and aggravation. Secure2Disk powered by EVault has the right online backup solution for companies that are serious about protecting business-critical data. |
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In the past decade, the proliferation of colocation data centers that house and host servers has made moving servers out of house a viable option for those who need to build or enhance IT capability. You no longer have to keep your servers in-house – along with all the headaches that come with it: power, UPS and back-up power, cooling, communication backbone, security, and a long list of additional concerns. |
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Determining the Best Option for Your Company
No matter how fast storage ability, data rates, and processor speeds increase, the demand that users place on IT infrastructure continues to expand. IT departments must continually look forward and plan in order to meet future requirements. |
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“IF YOU FAIL TO PLAN, PLAN TO FAIL”
goes the old adage. In the current age of hyper-connectivity and uber-accessibility, dependence on real-time technology and applications brings an even greater need for technologycentric disaster recovery and business continuity planning. Most organizations understand this, yet despite the increased awareness, IT disaster recovery plans continue to fail when needed most; during a disaster or disruption. |
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Business Continuity Management has undergone many changes in recent years, both in scale and scope. It has come a long way from its tactical beginnings in computer disaster recovery, and is now moving toward a much more business-focused position with an emphasis on operational risk prevention and resilience planning.
Many of the issues driving the current change in approach to Business Continuity Management have been steadily growing for years. These issues include stricter international standards, rigorous compliance requirements, a broader understanding of internal and external risk, and a priority on minimum downtime and maximum information availability. |
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Using Business Continuity Management software to manage risk and resilience
This paper assesses the evolution of Business Continuity Management (BCM) from its traditional technology roots towards a more business-focused approach. It also considers the value of BCM software as an enabler of this transition. |
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Right now, businesses around the world are struggling to recover from the devastation caused by both natural and manmade disasters. The idea that your company could one day find itself in the same position is hardly inconceivable.
Having a detailed and organized business continuity management (BCM) strategy in place and ready to use if the need arises substantially increases the likelihood that your enterprise will be able to get back into action swiftly and efficiently after a crisis or disaster. |
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Whether your business is involved with it yet or not, cloud computing will play a significant role in the future of IT: it has already been enthusiastically embraced by small and medium sized businesses and its potential is also being accepted and exploited by larger enterprises. |
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| SunGard's Availability Services division has been making some technology upgrades to its business continuity services. Following on the heels of its recent 365 Hosting (otherwise known as Hosting365) acquisition, and new Secure2Disk offering, comes a new business continuity management software platform. While so many cloud providers are producing assessment services for workloads that belong in the cloud, SunGard has introduced an assessment service for enterprise that measures the resilience of vendors and readiness of employees in business continuity planning. |
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| SunGard, though most commonly recognized as a leader in disaster recovery planning and services, also boasts a highly skilled consulting services organization. Its storage services group has developed a five step program that can help reduce storage OPEX and CAPEX and drive tighter alignment with the business. Anyone trying to balance rapidly growing infrastructure with the need to reduce costs should find SunGard’s service appealing. |
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It is imperative that SMBs recognize and plan for the potential risks that exist in today’s IT-focused climate. Download the whitepaper to discover the five steps you need to consider when developing a business continuity plan for your organization. |
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Just like their non-virtualized counterparts, virtualized infrastructures require a plan for when a business disruption or disaster strikes. Also like their non-virtualized counterparts, local redundancy while enhanced due to virtualization-enabled high availability and pooling of resources, only goes so far. It can never be a substitute for a second geographically segregated disaster recovery site. Download and read this executive level overview of Virtual Disaster Recovery (VDR) benefits and planning considerations. |
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Organizations can’t control whether or not they will be affected by a natural disaster, power outage or other unplanned incident, but they can work to help ensure their business is prepared to respond to and recover from these events with minimal impact. Disaster recovery planning is an organizational imperative that can help reduce risk and help companies effectively respond to situations that threaten to disrupt essential business processes. Find out more. Download the white paper today. |
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Focused on short-term pressures to make budget cuts, it often escapes companies that disaster preparedness needs may actually be greater during economic slowdowns. For instance, many organizations are reducing costs by consolidating equipment. But because of e-discovery and compliance requirements, data must still be retained even with a cap on spending. Read more about why Disaster Recovery readiness is so critical to your organization. Download the whitepaper. |
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In today's corporate environment, CIOs and security managers need to protect information assets such as intellectual property (IP) and personally identifiable information (PII). Key business drivers for data protection include: Regulatory compliance; competition in the market; legal and recovery costs associated with breaches; and Brand risk. So how do risk managers address these issues? Find out in the eBook. |
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Organizations are starting to place renewed emphasis on BC/DR plans that better account for their people, who most consider a company’s most valuable asset. The BC/DR planning specifically centered around the people of an organization is commonly referred to as workforce continuity. Read more about it and why it's critical to your organization in this informative eBook!
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| This white paper will briefly explain what cloud computing is, review the facts which underlie the hyperbole, and will consider both the benefits and challenges that it brings to organizations. |
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IT organizations are recognizing the benefits of selecting a colocation provider for their mission-critical equipment in a data center. Discover what you need to consider when selecting a colocation provider for your organization. |
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| The pre-pandemic phase is a little bit like a hurricane – you still have some time to prepare, but there is a sense of urgency as the WHO levels are increased. Determine first who within your organization will make critical decisions in the face of a pandemic impacting your operations, and work with any corporate pandemic leaders or crisis management structure. Then understand your vulnerabilities looking at systems and data to some extent – but particularly at process and people. |
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| The pre-pandemic phase is a little bit like an approaching hurricane – you still have some time to prepare, but there is a sense of urgency as the WHO levels are increased. If your organization does not have a monitoring activity in place, consider implementing one. |
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| Over the past three decades, SunGard has witnessed the Information Availability industry evolve all the way from a single mainframe to an imperative for every major business. We asked Ross Pincus, the Philadelphia manager of Testing Services / Recovery Assistance Services about where the best opportunities remain for companies to achieve greater testing efficiencies, and how bringing a testing expert into the process can help cut costs and improve preparedness. |
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A pandemic: widespread disease on global proportions is a frightening thought. In the case of the H5N1 avian influenza virus, the very real potential for a pandemic can be understood when we recognize that today, there is no known antiviral treatment for this strain of virus, and over the past few years, the mortality rate for people who are infected is over 50 percent. The World Health Organization (WHO) has tracked 499 known cases of the H5N1 virus globally, and 295 deaths have been reported as of early June 2010. |
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| One of the best ways to test—and refine—these capabilities is through an incident management exercise. These can run the gamut from high-level walkthroughs to full-scale, interactive simulations. The latter—in which the team responds in real-time to a fictional, but continually evolving, incident—is the best method for testing preparedness. SunGard Availability Services has conducted numerous walkthroughs for individual organizations, as well as full-scale simulations for both individual organizations and conference groups. |
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| In virtually every sector—from healthcare and financial services to manufacturing and government—there’s a steady drumbeat to deliver better results with fewer resources. With the potential to increase efficiency, power new business/service models and enhance agility, technology is the one of the most popular—and effective—means of doing more with less. |
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| The Incident Management Team provides direction and support to all affected business units. This centralized approach ensures that recovery requirements for affected business units are met while minimizing confusion and duplication of effort. |
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| The Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO) raised the current level of the H1N1 influenza pandemic alert to Phase 6 on June 11, 2009. As a direct result, all organizations should consider the immediate activation of their pandemic preparedness plans. |
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| Collect and review existing business priorities, strategies and business availability preparedness. Evaluate the potential risks and vulnerabilities based on a Pandemic flu disruption to people, processes, and technology. Assess the potential impacts a Pandemic situation may have upon your organization and determine appropriate strategies to mitigate areas of concern. Document the actions necessary to prepare for an increased Pandemic threat level. |
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| It used to be that disaster recovery fell solely within the domain of technical specialists and engineers. That’s no longer true; these days, it’s imperative to share this important responsibility among both executive and IT management. By weighing these “key considerations” and the answers to them, your company is taking the first steps toward protecting its technical and business environments and improving its Information Availability strategy— the ability to keep people and information connected throughout the enterprise—no matter what. |
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| This material suggests high-level issues that you should consider if you are in response mode. SunGard Availability Services is providing this as a public service. |
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| Organizations everywhere are discovering that it’s not easy managing IT requirements these days. Technology is moving forward at an unprecedented rate and our dependence on it continues to grow. Management is under the gun to evaluate and achieve best-in-class solutions for everything from system maintenance to ongoing operations. Not only that, but the technical infrastructure is the very foundation for most routine aspects of business, so you simply can’t function without your computing and telecommunications resources. However, budgets remain flat, forcing everyone to do more with less. |
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| Today’s competitive, regulated and economically stressed business landscape means IT organizations may be living on a razor’s edge where they are challenged to address increasing internal and customer demands with flat – or decreasing – budgets. CIOs and IT departments face daily pressures to improve application and data availability while also balancing costs and risks for the IT infrastructure that runs critical business processes. |
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| An IT manager starts off the week with a hardware failure on a server running the firm’s CRM application. Sales and marketing, as well as senior management, are flustered – they can’t access the application to contact key customers regarding a change to a scheduled product delivery date. The IT manager had a replacement server on hand—a rarity in today’s tough financial environment—and was able to get the new hardware up and running quickly. The IT team needed to cut some corners in the interest of time – they decided security checks and data de-duplication efforts could wait. They were able to meet their prescribed recovery time objective, and more importantly, the business managers stopped complaining, so the IT team felt the crisis was resolved positively. |
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| Delaware Department of Technology and Information Exercise Sharpens Skills for Cyber Attack Prevention, Detection, Response, and Recovery |
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| The intensity of the 2005 hurricane season was unprecedented—with storms hitting at more than twice the frequency and severity of typical seasons. The normal seasonal average is 10 named storms, six hurricanes and two major hurricanes, according to the National Hurricane Center. But from the beginning of June to the end of November, there were 27 named storms—surpassing the record of 21 set in 1933. Thirteen of these storms were classified as hurricanes, edging out the previous record of 12 set in 1969. And three reached Category 5 status with wind speeds greater than 155 m.p.h. at some point during the arc of the storm. |
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| Today’s IT organizations are faced with the daunting task of optimizing all aspects of their departments, including people, processes and technology. Optimizing and streamlining server utilization through virtualization represents one particularly exciting example. We found that one of the most popular usage models for virtualization is to drive down server procurements in development, test and production environments. When this model is followed, future server purchases are avoided; instead, new workloads are established on existing systems. |
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