Disaster Recovery Journal

Columbus, Ohio – Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson (NYSE:EMR) and a global leader in maximizing availability, capacity and efficiency of critical infrastructure, today released a white paper that provides colocation facilities with best practices for building a scalable data center infrastructure that will enable them to quickly add customers, while optimizing their bottom line at every stage of infrastructure utilization.

The white paper, titled “Building a More Profitable Colocation Environment,” takes a closer look at a number of new and proven data center infrastructure technologies and approaches that are ideally suited for colocation providers to advance the flexibility of data center environments, increase efficiency and safeguard availability.

“As data center managers struggle to keep pace with growing capacity needs while working under the constraints of tightened budgets and energy efficiency initiatives, many are considering third-party colocation facilities as an alternative to building out their own environments,” said Chuck Spears, president North America sales, Emerson Network Power. “In order for colocation facilities to capitalize on this increased interest and customer demand, it is important they deliver on their value proposition of doing it “cheaper” and “faster” while also providing better reliability than an organization can deliver on its own. To do this, they need a sophisticated, scalable data center infrastructure that will enable them to quickly add customers, while optimizing efficiency at every stage of infrastructure utilization.”

The Emerson Network Power white paper notes that as colocation providers work to meet growing demand for their services, they are driving major changes in the industry. Customer demands, such as faster speed of deployment, energy efficiency, higher availability and capacity on demand, are driving colocation providers to incorporate new and innovative technologies; and according to Emerson Network Power research, they are installing the technology at a faster pace than enterprise data centers are installing it.

The data center infrastructure technologies discussed in the white paper include:

• Uninterruptible power supplies (UPS) with hardware- or software-enabled scalability
• Modular busway
• Modular chiller systems
• Modular data center packages
• Cooling systems with pumped refrigerant economizer technology
• Active eco-mode for the UPS

For more information on these, or other Liebert technologies and services from Emerson Network Power, or to download the white paper, visit www.Liebert.com.

About Emerson Network Power

Emerson Network Power, a business of Emerson (NYSE:EMR), delivers software, hardware and services that maximize availability, capacity and efficiency for data centers, healthcare and industrial facilities. A trusted industry leader in smart infrastructure technologies, Emerson Network Power provides innovative data center infrastructure management solutions that bridge the gap between IT and facility management and deliver efficiency and uncompromised availability regardless of capacity demands.  Our solutions are supported globally by local Emerson Network Power service technicians. Learn more about Emerson Network Power products and services at www.EmersonNetworkPower.com.

About Emerson
Emerson (NYSE: EMR), based in St. Louis, Missouri (USA), is a global leader in bringing technology and engineering together to provide innovative solutions for customers in industrial, commercial, and consumer markets around the world. The company is comprised of five business segments: Process Management, Industrial Automation, Network Power, Climate Technologies, and Commercial & Residential Solutions. Sales in fiscal 2012 were $24.4 billion. For more information, visit www.Emerson.com.

COLORADO SPRINGS, Colo. –– STORServer®, the leading provider of proven data backup solutions for the mid-market, announces today that managed service provider Oxford Networks is using STORServer’s new MSP Appliance to provide data protection as a service to its clients.

The MSP Appliance is installed at Oxford Networks’ datacenter and consists of an IBM M4 with the correctly sized amount of resources (memory, disk, networking, etc.), back-end storage devices to store the data (disk, tape, optical, etc.), IBM® Tivoli® Storage Manager (TSM) data protection software, the STORServer Console (SSC) centralized management tool and Front-safe portal software to manage and charge incoming customers. As a certified STORServer MSP, Oxford Networks will become the service provider any time a STORServer Cloud Appliance is sold by a reseller in its region. STORServer offers support of Front-safe, TSM, SSC and all necessary hardware to Oxford Networks.

“Through the partnership with STORServer, we’re now able to establish run-rate revenues selling data protection as a service with a front-faced flexible billing interface,” said Alan Marblestone, data center product manager for Oxford Networks. “We’re excited to be able to offer an extremely flexible and configurable off-site repository to our clients’ data.”

Built on IBM TSM, STORServer offers a complete suite of enterprise backup appliances, software and services that solve today’s backup, archive and disaster recovery challenges.

“Data protection as a service is one of the fastest growing revenue opportunities in managed services for both large IT shops and service providers today,” said Bill Smoldt, president of STORServer. “Mid-market companies have zero tolerance for downtime and system outage. With the MSP Appliance, MSPs can help clients continue business with minimal disruption from unforeseen circumstances and capture data protection as a service revenue by leveraging TSM, STORServer and a user-friendly billing interface.”

To become a certified STORServer MSP partner, a MSP Appliance must be purchased and subsequent training must be done. For more information on the STORServer MSP Appliance or becoming a certified MSP partner, contact an authorized STORServer reseller or call (800) 550-5121. For more information on STORServer’s complete line of data backup solutions, visit http://www.storserver.com.

 About STORServer®

STORServer, Inc. is a leading provider of data backup solutions for the mid-market. The company offers a complete suite of appliances, software and services that solve today’s backup, archive and disaster recovery issues once and for all and reduce install and management time to just minutes a day. STORServer sells exclusively through a nationwide network of industry-leading backup partners. For press inquiries, contact Megan Lawler at megan@dittoepr.com. For more information, visit www.storserver.com. 

About Oxford Networks

Oxford Networks is an award winning technology solutions provider based in Lewiston, Maine. With a fiber optic network backbone running from Bangor to Boston, and a high-security data center located in Brunswick, Maine, Oxford Networks provides end to end technology solutions for companies around the world. Oxford Networks services and products include:  Data Center Services, Managed IT Services, Voice, Internet and Carrier Services. For more information, visit www.oxfordnetworks.com

New York, NY – Continuity Software^TM, the world’s leading provider of service availability risk management solutions, today announced the results of its 2013 Financial Services Availability Benchmark study. The first of its kind, it reveals that while financial services organizations are obligated to establish and report stringent service availability objectives for mission-critical systems, they are actually among the worst performing in regards to meeting these goals.  In fact, 41% of those surveyed acknowledged that they did not meet their service availability goals for mission-critical systems in 2012.

Continuity Software also announced today, the results of its second annual 2013 Enterprise Service Availability and Business Continuity Benchmark survey.  Based upon responses from IT executives across a wide range of industries, the results reveal that much like the financial services industry, they also have highly commendable service availability goals for mission-critical systems.  Nonetheless, 32% of the organizations surveyed reported that they did not meet their goals.

“The Continuity Software 2013 Financial Services Availability Benchmark study and the 2013 Enterprise Service Availability and Business Continuity Benchmark survey offer executives responsible for their organization’s IT, disaster recovery (DR) and/or business continuity an opportunity to see how their own goals and results stack-up in comparison to their peers,” said Doron Pinhas, Chief Technology Officer (CTO), Continuity Software.  “More importantly, it points out the most common causes for outages, as well as presents the most effective strategies for ensuring service availability.”

2013 Financial Services IT Availability and Business Continuity Benchmark Survey - Quick Summary of Findings:

-        89% of financial service organizations have an availability goal of >99.76% (less than 22 hours of downtime a year); 67% have a goal of >99.91% (less than eight hours); and 25% have a goal of 99.99% (less than one hour). 

-        41% of the survey respondents did not meet their goals.

-        41% conduct complete DR tests at least annually; 26% don’t ever conduct a complete test.

-        73% run mission-critical applications in a private cloud environment; 30% run mission-critical applications in the public cloud. 

-        37% do not have any process in place to test reliability of private cloud systems. 

2013 Enterprise Service Availability and Business Continuity Benchmark Survey – Quick Summary of Findings:

-        90% of business organizations have an availability goal of >99.76% (less than 22 hours of downtime a year); 68% have a goal of >99.91% (less than eight hours); 27% have a goal of 99.99% (less than one hour). 

-        32% of the survey respondents did not meet their goals.

-        The lowest downtime figures were reported by respondents from the transportation industry (3.7 hours average/year), followed by high-tech (4 hours), and business service organizations (4.2 hours). 

-        The highest downtime figures were reported by respondents from the healthcare industry (14.1 hours), financial services (8.9 hours) and public sector organizations (8.5 hours). 

-        71% run mission-critical applications in a private cloud environment; 33% run mission-critical applications in the public cloud. 

-        40% do not have any process in place to test reliability of cloud systems. 

Full copies of the 2013 Financial Services Availability Benchmark study and the 2013 Enterprise Service Availability and Business Continuity Benchmark survey can be found at http://continuitysoftware.com/serv/2013-service-availability-benchmark-survey-financial-services/ and http://continuitysoftware.com/serv/2013-service-availability-benchmark-survey-cross-industry/ respectively.

About Continuity Software       


Continuity Software is the leading provider of service availability risk management solutions.  Trusted by many of the world's largest and most successful companies, Continuity Software’s award-winning software mitigates downtime and data-loss risks across the entire enterprise IT landscape, including the datacenter’s disaster recovery, high availability (HA), and private cloud environments. With Continuity Software solutions, organizations can be confident that service availability, data protection and business continuity goals will be met or exceeded 365 days a year.  For further information, please visit www.continuitysoftware.com, email info@continuitysoftware.com, or call: +1-888-782-8170 (United States) or +972 (3) 6470888 (Israel).

Virtualisation and the cloud are bringing greater flexibility, agility and capabilities to users - but very little has been done to test data recovery plans.

This lack of preparation can have serious consequences if a data disaster strikes. Adoption might be inevitable but it takes time and investment to create a data recovery plan that can protect businesses. It might require some cost upfront but safeguarding data can provide long-term savings that are too big to ignore.

CSO — While organizations have been hot to virtualize their machine operations, that zeal hasn't been transferred to their adoption of good security practices, according to a survey released on Wednesday.

Nearly half (42 percent) of the 346 administrators participating in the security vendor BeyondTrust's survey said they don't use any security tools regularly as part of operating their virtual systems, and more than half (57 percent) acknowledged that they used existing image templates for producing new virtual images.

...

http://www.cio.com/article/733063/Security_Practices_Wanting_in_Virtual_Machine_World

When disaster strikes on or near a college campus, local first responders don’t always have the staff or resources to help immediately — especially when the campus is as big as a small city.

That’s why thousands of students, faculty and staff on campuses nationwide are being certified to help.

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http://www.emergencymgmt.com/training/C-CERTs-Preparedness-College-Campuses.html

Many managed services providers (MSPs) selling backup and disaster recovery (BDR) offerings may not have hit the ground running when they first rolled out their services. Some strategies worked, while others failed. To find out where MSPs may have made common errors, we’ve reached out to a couple of MSPs in the channel and asked them to share their mistakes for the sake of education. Here’s what we found in this MSPmentor exclusive.

Strata Information Technology, Inc President Pete Robbins (pictured) and CCNS Consulting owner Karl Bickmore (pictured in the promo image) confessed their initial BDR mistakes to us, and let us share them to help alleviate early BDR pains for other MSPs. We’ve broken down their errors into three categories: sizing BDR, operating and understanding data in a disaster, and selling complicated offerings.

...

http://mspmentor.net/infocenter-bdr/3-bdr-mistakes-learn-missteps-other-msps

A new report released by Ernst & Young presents a disconcerting paradox when it comes to corporate sustainability efforts.

While more companies are concerned about increased risk and proximity of natural resource shortages, corporate risk response appears to be inadequate to address the scope and scale of some of these challenges.

...

http://www.businessgreen.com/bg/news/2266605/has-sustainability-become-a-risky-business

Six months later, the cleanup from Hurricane Sandy is still a work in progress. The Storm that caused some $50 billion in damage and killed 159 people has not been forgotten by those along the east coast. The following is a snapshot of Hurricane Sandy by the numbers.

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http://www.riskmanagementmonitor.com/hurricane-sandy-six-months-later-by-the-numbers/

Computerworld — Big data may seem to promise big insights to users, but more isn't always better, cautions statistician Nate Silver, who became one of America's most well-known faces of data analysis after his FiveThirtyEight blog accurately predicted 2012 presidential election results in all 50 states.

The more data there is, "the more people can cherry pick" data points that confirm what they want it to show, he said.

...

http://www.cio.com/article/733061/More_Data_Isn_t_Always_Better_Says_Nate_Silver