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DISASTER
RECOVERY
_____________ Corporate President/CEO Vice
President
CONFERENCE REGISTRAR Brazil:
Jose Carlos Ferreira
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Click Here for a Printable Version An
Interview With John Lindeman of SunGard Availability Services Choosing a storage
protection strategy and information availability provider are both critical
decisions. How can you ensure that these solutions work in tandem, so
your business, customers, suppliers and stakeholders are not impacted
in case of an outage? As John Lindeman, vice president of sales support
and product management for SunGard Availability Services says, “Even
the best technology mandates the right implementation and management
to ensure that information remains accessible.” Eckles: When I think about high
availability, I think about systems. What about the “human”
factor that is involved? Lindeman: That’s one of the
critical elements in designing any availability or protection solution.
High availability isn’t exclusively about technology; it’s
about keeping people connected with information. And there are two camps
to be considered: the customer or end-users, and the internal users.
Hettermann: How do I choose the
solution that will best meet my business requirements? Lindeman: As you move along the
availability continuum, you have to balance the direct costs against
your organization’s level of risk mitigation. It’s essential
to have a clear understanding of what you’re trying to protect,
as well as how quickly the solution gets you back to where you need
to be if an event occurs. Ask yourself how readily the end-user can
get to the data and start using it. This defines your recovery point.
Now match that point with your organization’s recovery time objectives. Eckles: So then, what is a reasonable
target availability level? Hettermann: When looking at a HA
solution, in addition to a valid assessment, what steps should be taken? Lindeman: I can’t stress enough
how important the discovery phase is, especially in determining the
business requirements and correlating them into recovery time and availability
time objectives. That has to be completed prior to any actual solution
design. Eckles: How do you get from the
design to the implementation phase? Lindeman: The key to a successful
implementation ties back to the problem definition and the crisp design
component that accounts for the organization, the economics and the
skill sets. Hettermann: Are there any additional
cost-efficiencies that can be achieved? Lindeman: There are a lot of efficiencies
to be achieved by choosing an infrastructure for your production environment
that, without being disruptive or having to redesign everything, will
fit neatly into an HA solution. Many of the major storage solution providers
have integrated some efficiencies that will enable the addition of an
HA component without having to duplicate your equipment costs across
the board. Eckles:
What external factors are driving the move toward managed storage services? Lindeman: The competitive nature
of business today is driving the need for quick access to information
in order to facilitate decision-making as a situation unfolds. If you
don’t have that information available, you can’t sustain a
competitive advantage. The required storage capacity is fueling explosive
growth in managed storage services, and rapidly redefining the way information
is made available. Hettermann: What else should I
look for in a storage and information availability solution that works
in tandem? Lindeman: Remember that an HA solution
is not just a technology decision. If it were, the storage providers
of the world would be more successful in the implementation of EMC/SRDF
like applications. The most important part of any design is not the
technology – it’s how the people and organization connect
with that information. Make sure that your provider can integrate the
whole process: from protecting information, to accessing it, to how
the end-user views and uses it. Judith Eckles is the senior director of marketing communications for SunGard Availability Services and a member of the Disaster Recovery Journal Editorial Advisory Board. Traci Hettermann is the director of marketing communications for SunGard Availability Services and a member of the Disaster Recovery Journal Editorial Advisory Board.
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