More than 400 years ago, a band of English actors called Lord Chamberlain's Men set about constructing the Globe Theatre, which later became the theatrical home of William Shakespeare, in Southwark -- a marshy area across the River Thames in southeast London. Who knew that centuries later, Southwark Bridge would become a bustling metropolitan district with major office developments, council estates, social housing and private residential gated communities side by side?
In fact, Southwark Bridge is now the site for one of Sungard Availability Services' (Sungard AS') state-of-the-art data Workplace Recovery Centres, which ensure business continuity in the face of disruption by providing workplace recovery suites and services – all with a single phone call. Along with Sungard AS' other centre, these two facilities are capable of handling more than 60 concurrent workplace invocations. Additionally, Sungard AS' Southwark Bridge location is in the Zone 1 recovery services area in Central London, along with its Mansell Street location, meaning no one can handle the number of locations in Central London that Sungard AS can. Sungard AS is now investing over £3.1m ($3.7m) in further investment projects slated for 2020.
As the world becomes increasingly digital, collaboration is happening at the "edge" — near population centres where the physical and digital worlds collide and where organisations come together to exchange information and services. But with this growing interconnectivity comes risk; the World Economic Forum (WEF) reported in 2019 that cyber-attacks and data breaches ranked as the 3rd and 4th most likely global risks behind extreme weather and natural disasters.
Today, a disaster can range from a flood to a ransomware attack, terrorist threat, or even a pandemic outbreak, and can cripple businesses indeterminately – not to mention causing irreparable damage to their reputations.
With more than 40 years of experience helping customers recover from disasters of all types, Sungard AS has seen its share of catastrophes, including the 7/7 bombings in London in 2005 and the Wannacry ransomware attack on the National Health Service in 2017. During major disruptions such as fires, floods and hurricanes, entire areas can be left without power and telephony for weeks at a time. Workplace Recovery Services from Sungard AS provide an alternate brick-and-mortar site for key staff, duplicating a company's IT footprint precisely.
Housing multiple exabytes worth of data for organisations ranging in size from small businesses to major worldwide enterprises, Sungard AS Southwark Bridge offers a hardened workspace for IT staff and employees to work as a team through disastrous events. The 135,000+ square foot recovery area houses 1,695 seats, multiple customer conference rooms, office space and lounge areas. Enhancements include 200 additional shared recovery seats, providing a site total of more than 2,000 once completed, as well as network bandwidth increases and dual screen technology for each shared recovery seat.
