Makes Major Investments in Infrastructure and Service Delivery to Meet Growing Demand for Information Availability Services
To meet the increasing demand for Information Availability services, SunGard Availability Services, the pioneer and leading provider of Information Availability and business continuity services, announced that it will make major investments in its UK infrastructure and service delivery team.
SunGard’s first step is to build a third resilient data centre for the UK’s Southern region, providing managed hosting services to London businesses. Located in Woking, Surrey, Technology Centre 3 (TC3) is scheduled to open in early 2009. TC3 will connect to both the original London Technology Centre (LTC) – SunGard's flagship Information Availability centre near Heathrow whose award–winning[1] data centre strategy forms the model for all SunGard UK technology centres – and TC2 in London Docklands.
SunGard is already the only Information Availability provider in the UK to provide geographically separate resilient data centre capabilities. The building of TC3 will further enhance SunGard’s position as the leading provider of Information Availability services to businesses in London and the South of England by taking SunGard’s fully managed data centre space in the region to over 200,000 sq ft.
"London is the hottest global datacenter market," says Daniel Golding, Vice President and Research Director at Tier1 Research. "Providers are becoming increasingly creative in their efforts to provide high quality datacenter and disaster recovery products to the UK and EU markets. Load balancing IT across multiple energy efficient and highly redundant datacenters is typically the best method of achieving those aims."
In addition to the new Southern TC3, SunGard will also expand its centres in Livingston, Scotland and Elland, Yorkshire. Work is currently under way at SunGard's Livingston site, which will see the facility expand to offer an additional 230 Workplace Recovery positions as well as other internal improvements.
SunGard's Elland Recovery Centre is also being enhanced to meet growing regional demand for Managed Services, including being fitted with a resilient data centre for the Northern region, dubbed Technology Centre 4 (TC4). This facility will deliver the same high level of services as those offered from the Southern locations, and is scheduled to be operational before the end of this year. Upon completion of TC3 and TC4, the total amount of scaleable, resilient data centre space will be 250,000 sq ft.
SunGard also announced that its service delivery team, responsible for supporting customers in the event of an incident, recently recruited its 260th member, and is recruiting an average of 4 new staff every month.
Keith Tilley, managing director UK and executive vice president Europe, SunGard Availability Services, said: “Last year’s floods, continued energy uncertainty and the ever present risks of hardware or power failure, are compelling more and more organisations to give serious thought to Information Availability. BS 25999, the first ever British Standard for business continuity management, has accelerated this process. In order to minimise the risk and impact of any business interruption for our customers, it is vital that we have the right people, recovery space and technology available at a moment’s notice. This is why our infrastructure, technology and service delivery team are so important.”
SunGard currently boasts over 12,000 Workplace Recovery positions in the UK. All UK recovery centres are linked to the award-winning SunGard National Network[2] (SNN), which interconnects SunGard’s regional recovery facilities via an optical network, ScaleNet, to SunGard’s London recovery locations. SNN helps customers ’rollback’ to alternative recovery sites should space be unavailable at their usual site. This is especially valuable during floods and other localised incidents, which place considerable strain on recovery sites. This unique capability helps every customer get the recovery space they need and address the requirements of BS 25999*.
*BS 25999, published in late 2006, is the fastest-selling ever published by British Standards Institute (BSI). It lays down clear guidance on the key elements of BCM, and sets minimal levels of compliance in each area. It requires that organisations ensure their plans develop in line with the business, are tested regularly, and, above all, are understood by employees at every level.
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[1] Winner – “Data Centre Strategy” 2008 Business Continuity Awards
[2] Winner “Most Innovative Product” – 2006 Business Continuity Industry Awards