SunGard expands UK resilience network

Business continuity firm SunGard adds another data centre to its system

LONDON – SunGard has announced the expansion of its UK network of data centres available for firms attempting to mitigate business continuity management (BCM) risks. The operational risk and information management firm is the only BCM provider in the UK to offer geographically separate multiple data centres, and it is now building a third resilience data centre in southern England.

The third technology centre (TC3) is to be based in Woking, Surrey and will connect with an existing centre in London’s Docklands area (TC2) and SunGard’s first information centre, near Heathrow airport, also in southern England.

Daniel Golding, vice-president and research director at Tier1 Research, says: “Providers are becoming increasingly creative in their efforts to provide high-quality data centre and disaster recovery products to the UK and EU markets. Load balancing IT across multiple energy-efficient and highly redundant data centres is typically the best method of achieving those aims.”

In addition to the network in the south, SunGard will expand its centres in Livingston, Scotland and Elland, Yorkshire. The Scottish site will gain an additional 230 workplace-recovery positions. The improved Yorkshire recovery centre (TC4) is expected to deliver the same services as the southern sites by 2009.

SunGard’s service team continues to grow, despite current market conditions. At least 260 staff manage 12,000 UK workplace-recovery positions, all linked to each other and allowing for relocation to any regional centre. Improving corporate resilience is in line with the British Standards Institute guideline BS 25999, released in 2006.

Keith Tilley, SunGard’s UK managing director and executive vice-president for Europe, says: “Last year’s floods, continued energy uncertainty and the ever-present risks of hardware or power failure are compelling more organisations to give serious thought to information availability. BS 25999, the first-ever British standard for business continuity management, has accelerated this process.”