Backup Review featured the news that SunGard Availability Services announced the refocusing of its consulting practice to improve the resilience of the operations of its clients. The article states that SunGard Consulting uses a proprietary Risk, Resilience, and Recovery (R3) framework methodology and a measure tool called Rev2 to combine assessment, tools and industry best practices to achieve operational resilience. The article also notes that SunGard has established a partnership with The Carnegie Mellon Software Engineering Institute to use their Resilience Management Model CERT-RMM, a management model for operational resilience.

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Computer Technology Review published a byline article by Doug Kavanagh, a lead senior consultant with SunGard Availability Services. The article addresses the startling number of natural disasters in 2011 as a pretense to raise the importance of business continuity planning for enterprises. “Without a business continuity program in place, even a minor disruption to systems, facilities or other key resources can potentially halt operations, impact customers or harm the financials of an organization,” Kavanagh writes. Kavanagh lists seven tips for organizations to consider when implementing a business continuity plan, including ensuring the plan is a living document, bridging the gap between business and IT, and testing the plan.

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Security Magazine’s May issue took a look at successful public-private partnerships and highlighted SunGard Availability Services’ relationship with the State of North Dakota in one of its short profiles. North Dakota needed a versatile but highly available mass notification system for its government facilities and universities, and selected Notifind from SunGard. “The state has a single, unified system that contains information on students and faculty across 11 campuses and all state agencies,” the article states.

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TMC Net covered the news that SunGard Availability Services was honored with a Cisco Partner Summit award for the North American theater. The article called out SunGard as “a provider of disaster recovery services, managed IT services, information availability consulting services and business continuity management software.” SunGard was recognized by Cisco for its cloud solutions that deliver the high availability and scalability the operations demand. “A SunGard cloud expert reviews the request and recommends modifications if needed to help ensure availability before changes are executed through IT automation, providing a safeguard against avoidable outages while still delivering rapid provisioning of new cloud service,” the article stated.

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David Honor includes Cisco’s selection of SunGard Availability Services as a Cloud Partner of the Year in his top business continuity news of the week. Honour wrote that SunGard’s cloud solutions are a suite of compute, network and storage resources delivered on a resilient cloud infrastructure. He added SunGard's Cloud services are pre-integrated and delivered on Cisco's Unified Computing System.

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MSP News featured the news that SunGard Availability Services was named a recipient of the Cisco Partner Summit theater award for Cloud Partner of the Year in the “service provider” category. The awards, announced at Cisco’s annual channel partner conference in San Diego, Calif., are given to Cisco partners who provide exceptional performance. The article also highlights that SunGard’s cloud services, pre-integrated and delivered on Cisco’s Unified Computing System (UCS), include Enterprise Cloud Services and Recover2Cloud.

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Bruce Hoard highlights the new managed workflow offering by SunGard Availability Services in his monthly feature on the best products recently entering the market. Hoard wrote, “Low-key but long lasting SunGard Availability Services updates its cloud package with a new Managed Workflow feature that builds on the company's IaaS capabilities by helping customers to proactively cut back the risk and exposure associated with making system changes to live cloud environments.”

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Cloud Times covers the announcement that SunGard Availability Services announced a technical preview of its Big Data solutions offering along with GoGrid, an Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) firm GoGrid. Tantow writes that the offering will allow SunGard to offer high-performance analytics jobs using the Hadoop platform. GoGrid and SunGard will be targeting their cloud-based Hadoop services to big data solutions hungry institutions like government bodies and financial services.

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James Gaskin tackles the difference between business continuity planning and disaster recovery planning in his article, and writes that companies should be aware the level of complexity in their organization should be reflected in their business continuity plan. SunGard BC consultant Doug Kavanagh is quoted throughout the piece, and Kavanagh describes the particular needs every organization has, from small businesses to Fortune 1000 companies. “It’s critical to understand the human element” when assessing how to remain operational during a crisis, Kavanagh cautioned.

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SunGard Availability Services was named as a competing Big Data service to Amazon’s Elastic MapReduce and Microsoft’s Hadoop on Azure offerings in Silicon Angle’s coverage of the launch of the technical preview of SunGard’s UAS. SunGard will help customers scale up their Hadoop clusters as needed, and eventually SunGard’s consulting practice will consult customers on their Big Data needs, according to SunGard CTO Indu Kodukula.

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SunGard Availability Services launched a fully managed, Apache Hadoop-based Big Data analytics offering to meet the needs of customers that want access to their data streams but lack the expertise or resources to do so on their own. SunGard will supply the software, hardware and networking capabilities from its data centers while customers supply the data.

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Derrick Harris covers the news of the launch of the technical preview of SunGard’s Unified Analytics Services, which he writes is “a new Hadoop service that gives users on-demand access to the popular data-storage and processing platform.” SunGard CTO Indu Kodukula explained UAS in an interview with GigaOM, and said that SunGard will use cloud services to make tapping the Hadoop Big Data offering easier to work with. Indu also stated that SunGard is currently studying how to optimize its Hadoop-based UAS at the University of Texas Cloud Computing Center.

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Data Storage Connection reported the news that SunGard Availability Services transitioned several customers that lost power and access to their offices due to the Boston Back Bay electrical fire on March 13 to a SunGard workforce continuity site in Marlborough, Mass. SunGard successfully resumed business operations at the workforce continuity site for nearly 300 employees.

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DRJ covered SunGard Availability Services disaster recovery activities in the wake of the electrical fire March 13 that knocked out power to Boston’s Back Bay and affected businesses, including SunGard customers.

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John Hilliard gives a detailed look at the Boston power outage and SunGard Availability Services’ customer response. Hilliard wrote that employees of SunGard’s Boston-based customers were working from a nearby workforce continuity site following a transformer fire that left part of the city without power. About 300 workers were operating out of SunGard’s Workforce Continuity Center in Marlborough, Mass., which is located about 30 miles west of Boston, the article stated. On March 13, an 115,000-volt transformer inside a garage in the city’s Back Bay neighborhood caught fire and knocked out power for about 21,000 people and several businesses in the immediate area.

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Cisco announced that its Unified Computing System has made innovations to deliver a third-generation fabric computing platform, which integrates network, compute, virtualization and management to help IT organizations establish data centers that are competitive and agile. The Unified Computing System can help companies reduce the cost of physical infrastructure, and support the demands of data growth and Big Data analytics as well. The announcement features a quote from CTO Indu Kodukula: “The conversation around cloud today has changed from 'if' to 'how', and IT organizations are trying to figure out how to use the cloud for running tier-1 production applications. An enterprise-grade cloud service such as SunGard's, built and delivered on pre-integrated, premium infrastructure such as Cisco UCS and VBlock from VCE, is critical to making cloud ready for production.”

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SunGard Availability Services launched its first Canadian-based cloud computing center to deliver to customers its Enterprise Cloud Services, a highly-secure, enterprise-ready cloud built for production environments, and Recover2Cloud for Vaulting, a fully managed Recovery-as-a-Service offering for applications running on physical or virtual platforms. The article also notes that this offering is an expansion of the same services launched in North America in 2011, but that this is the first instance of the SunGard cloud on Canadian soil.

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SunGard Availability Services has launched its first cloud computing center based in Canada, offering its Enterprise Cloud Services, and recovery-as-a-service offering Recover2Cloud for Vaulting. The article describes SunGard’s Enterprise Cloud Services as an Infrastructure-as-a-Service (IaaS) solution that delivers security, compute, storage, and networking in one flexible, efficient and fully managed platform that can deliver higher efficiency and availability for customer production applications. In addition, SunGard provides customers a contractually committed 99.95 percent infrastructure uptime Service Level Agreement.

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In the article, SunGard CTO Indu Kodukula said, “We have an appreciation for what it takes to maintain large multi-tenant environments. It’s in our DNA.” The article goes on to cover SunGard’s growing strength in cloud, saying it is “expanding its partnerships, services and the geographic reach of its cloud-ready infrastructure.” Miller highlights the two most recent announcements from SunGard — a partnership with Amazon Web Services, and its first cloud computing center in Canada — as evidence. Indu is later quoted again, saying, “We see the next 18 to 24 months as the defining time for enterprise adoption of the cloud.”

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David Honour covers “the first instance of the SunGard Cloud on Canadian soil” with the announcement of SunGard Availability Services’ expanding its Cloud Services to Canada. The launch of SunGard’s first Canadian-based cloud computing delivery centre will offer SunGard's Enterprise Cloud Services, a highly-secure, enterprise-ready cloud built for production environments, and Recover2Cloud for Vaulting, a fully managed Recovery-as-a-Service offering for applications running on physical or virtual platforms.

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SunGard Availability Services has launched its first cloud computing center based in Canada, offering its Enterprise Cloud Services, and recovery-as-a-service offering Recover2Cloud for Vaulting. “US-based web hosts often focus expansion overseas in Europe or Asia, but this move shows that strengthening a North American footprint through a Canadian expansion is an option for service providers looking to reach a wider customer base,” writes Henderson.

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The popular blog Talkin’ Cloud covers the news of the SunGard cloud in Canada, and Weinberger writes that SunGard’s Enterprise Cloud Services, IaaS and Recover2Cloud will now be offered to customers from Canadian soil. The article analyzes the move further, and Weinberger writes, “SunGard does offer its cloud services through the channel, and expanding into the oft-overlooked Canadian services market could be the edge it needs.”

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David Marshall covers SunGard’s announcement of a new cloud delivery center in Mississauga, Ontario that will offer highly secure, enterprise-ready cloud for production environments and fully managed recovery services through Recover2Cloud. The article also features the quote from SunGard customer Frontline Focus International, Inc.

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The article states the SunGard cloud is now being deployed from the Mississauga, Ontario cloud center, matching the Enterprise Cloud Services and Recover2Cloud services launched throughout the U.S. by SunGard last year. The article also notes that both of these services are backed by a 99.95 percent infrastructure uptime Service Level Agreement.

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Peter Key covers the most news from SunGard Availability Services, the expansion of its cloud computing from a new Canadian data center and a partnership with Amazon Web Services. The article states SunGard will offer Enterprise Cloud Services and Recover2Cloud for Vaulting backup and recovery services from the Mississauga, Ontario data center. Meanwhile, SunGard’s new deal with Amazon Web Services allows SunGard customers to access AWS Direct Connect cloud backup services.

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SunGard Availability Services previewed a highly-available, bi-directional cloud backup service between Amazon and SunGard cloud customers, writes Vance McCarthy. The architecture avoids the need to transport data over the public internet and is designed for hybrid cloud workloads. SunGard will leverage Amazon Web Services’ Direct Connect to provide LAN-like connectivity between AWS’ East Coast data centers and SunGard’s Enterprise Cloud. “This is a complementary relationship that will have wide-reaching benefits for both organizations and our customers,” said SunGard CTO Indu Kodukula.

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Talkin’ Cloud, a well read cloud blog, calls the SunGard-AWS deal “big news” because both companies’ customers gain access to new services. Nicholas Mukhar writes that SunGard customers can now leverage the Amazon Storage Gateway and offer customers test and development cloud environments, while Amazon gains added cloud-based disaster recovery services. The article states the partnership follows two other big cloud offerings by SunGard, the Managed Recovery Program and the Zenoss Service Dynamics platform.

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This article in Silicon Angle states the cloud is disrupting traditional IT environments in every way, and backup and recovery are no exception. Maria Deutscher writes that the services stemming from the SunGard-AWS partnership could be a major step forward, because it makes “a very big deal out of security in order to tear down one of the biggest barriers blocking enterprise cloud adoption.”

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Charlie Babcock writes an extensive article on the SunGard-Amazon partnership, saying the deal marks the first time that AWS customers will be able to store data and backup copies at non-Amazon data centers. Babcock states that Amazon had “a pressing need to provide customers with a recovery option outside its own data centers” and turned to SunGard to be able to provide customers with that security.

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The article covers the breaking news that SunGard Availability Services and Amazon Web Services are about to ink a deal in which SunGard will provide backup and recovery services to customers in Amazon data centers. Babcock writes that Amazon will have the security of knowing its customers’ data will be backed up in geographically distant data centers, and that SunGard offers “more than just backup services” as a partner.

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Wired’s Mike Barton covers the SunGard-Amazon partnership and describes how the new service will use the Direct Connect services to provide LAN-like connectivity from AWS’ U.S. east coast data centers to SunGard’s Enterprise Cloud Services, enabling two-way disaster recovery services without sending data over the Internet. Indu is quoted, saying, “This is a complementary relationship that will have wide-reaching benefits for both organizations and our customers.”

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SunGard will soon be able to offer its enterprise customers a more complete range of cloud-based services as a result of the new partnership, writes Erin Harrison of MSP News. In addition, the article states that SunGard will architect the service that provides “customers an added layer of data protection by giving them the ability to asynchronously write customer data bi-directionally between the SunGard Enterprise Cloud and AWS’s storage infrastructure.”

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Enterprise Cloud Services earned a 2011 Excellence in Cloud Computing Award from TMC, and MSP News wrote about SunGard Availability Services latest honor. The article notes that SunGard’s Enterprise Cloud Services are built on Vblock technology from VMware, Cisco and EMC and deliver managed compute, network, storage and security services that support customer production applications.

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The article covers the recent announcement that SunGard Availability Services will is now offering workforce continuity services from the NAV CANADA Centre, which provides many Ottawa government and commercial offices a resource for business continuity in the event of a major interruption. SunGard’s Bruno Berti is quoted, saying, “Decreased productivity is one of the biggest sources of revenue loss during a business interruption, and the demand for alternative workspaces is growing as organizations are increasingly aware of this.”

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eWeek adapted SunGard’s Jan. 12 news release, “Seven Key Considerations When Evaluating an Emergency and Mass Notification Systems,” into a 10-part slideshow with text and graphics highlighting these important steps for organizations to consider. The slideshow also features three additional topics to consider related to emergency notification, developed exclusively for eWeek: global capabilities; service implementation and training; and customer support.

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Recently, many high profile data centers have installed special servers known as Vblocks, sets of Cisco rackmount servers packed with memory and optimized for virtualization, with their storage and network switching built into the rack. SunGard was one of the few examples of high profile installations listed in the article. “SunGard supplied disaster recovery services in the cloud through a data center built last year from Vblocks,” Babcock wrote.

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The Cornwall, Ontario newspaper covered the news that SunGard Availability Services signed a deal to set up a 14,000-square-foot facility at the NAV Centre that can hold up to 350 workers for workforce continuity services for Canadian companies dealing with a disaster. The site also features an audio clip of SunGard’s Bruno Berti explaining to the reporter that SunGard chose Cornwall for its geographic proximity to Ottawa and Montreal, where SunGard has major clients in government and the financial industry.

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Dan Woods of Forbes.com interviews Indu Kodukula and writes a lengthy article on enterprise IT and shifting enterprise applications to the cloud. Indu is the focus of the article as he explains five major facets of enterprise cloud readiness. Indu concludes that as enterprises move some applications to the cloud, they must fundamentally rethink their IT budgets.

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TMC announced the winners of the 2011 Cloud Computing Excellence Awards, sponsored by Cloud Computing Magazine. The awards honor companies that most effectively leveraged cloud computing to bring new, differentiated offerings to the marketplace. SunGard Availability Services was selected as a winner for its Enterprise Cloud Services offering.

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Peter Key of the Philadelphia Business Journal profiles the growing influence of cloud computing, and references SunGard Availability Services as an example of a provider in the Philadelphia-area. The article quotes SunGard’s Matthew Carey describing the differences between IaaS, PaaS, and SaaS. The article goes on to recount SunGard’s history as a cloud services provider, and describes in detail the relationship between SunGard and Energy Plus, a new customer. Hugh Scott, CIO of Energy Plus, is also quoted.

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A number of products to reach key personnel, employees, customers, and other stakeholders during an emergency are available, but how to choose the right emergency notification system for your organization involves careful thought and planning. In order to guide organizations through the process of selecting an emergency or mass notification system, SunGard Availability Services’ Tracey Forbes has developed seven key criteria to assess when evaluating one of these systems. Goals for the organization should be to select a system that is reliable, high performing, and interactive.

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After a record-setting $12 billion in damages due to weather disasters in 2011, more organizations are thinking seriously about implementing an emergency notification system to reach their personnel during a crisis. But with the marketplace flooded with products offering this service, choosing the right system is difficult. SunGard Availability Services offers seven key points to address when evaluating an emergency or mass notification system to ensure it is tailored to the organization’s specific requirements.

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