11:11 Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) vs. IBM Disaster Recovery Services

Sungard seems to be well-suited for those companies still doing traditional disaster recovery - replicating data (or shipping tapes), building out the servers/mainframe/AS400, restoring data/databases, then loading the applications and testing. We have limited exposure to their cloud offerings. For the most part, they can also take on or assist in the initial builds of client environments - we used them for building the OS only.

Incentivized

• Sungard does a good job dispersing risk. Even though the equipment we subscribe to is also subscribed by many other companies, they do a good job spreading those subscriptions across multiple industries and geographies, so that it is highly likely they'd have the equipment you'd need in the event of declaring a disaster
• Sungard has also done a good job working with us to break out costs, so that we are able to allocate our invoices amongst multiple products and clients.
• Sungard does a good job with security - physical security in the facilities, ensuring our interactions with them through their help desk or portal are secure, maintaining good access control, and providing us with options for ensuring our data is encrypted during testing activities

Incentivized

• Some facilities are located in inner-cities - while easily accessible by everyone, sometimes environment leaves something to be desired.
• Limited expertise in Solaris (Sun) regarding their managed services offerings.
• Often times a laborious process to engage someone to do hands/feet work.

Incentivized

I had used IBM Disaster Recovery Services in a previous job. While I found IBM much quicker to work with in terms of updating our equipment reservations, I've found Sungard much easier to conduct testing with. Specifically, they are much more adaptable and client-focused.

Incentivized

• ROI is a difficult concept regarding BCP or DR, since most dollars spent towards this are simply regarded as 'insurance' rather than an investment.
• Our ability to test and share those results with many of our clients is probably the biggest non-monetary return on investment we get.

Incentivized