YOU’RE IN GOOD HANDS

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Welcome to the summer issue of AVAIL in which we’re delighted to announce an exciting partnership that gives us a state-of-the-art new data centre in Ireland from which we will host our global cloud platform and full range of production and recovery solutions.

We have seen increased demand from organisations looking to host their data in Ireland and to benefit from the latest infrastructure and knowledge economy that is rapidly developing in the country. This expansion will ensure that our customers and other rapidly growing organisations located both in Ireland and around the world can benefit from our global cloud and managed services, based on Irish soil.

We bring you news of some exciting Sungard AS developments including a leading position in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and a flurry of award wins – with our very own Keith Tilley scooping the Lifetime Achievement Award at the 2015 CIR Business Continuity Awards for his tireless work in the industry over the last 35 years. I hope you will join me in extending our congratulations and thanks to Keith for this much deserved win!

We were also thrilled to win two prestigious titles on the night with our BC Award for Best Contribution to Continuity & Resilience being especially welcome as it is recognition from you our customers and our peers of Sungard AS’ efforts in promoting the continuity and resilience cause to the wider business community and advancing the professionalism of the industry. I’d also like to extend our warmest congratulations to our customers who also enjoyed well-deserved success on the night.

In other news we bring you details of our latest thought leadership campaign which explores whether a move to the cloud has made IT decision-makers fizz with excitement or given them a costly hangover, and we bring you details of Sungard AS service developments including Desktop as a Service (DaaS) and Recovery as a Service (RaaS).

As always, I hope you enjoy this issue and my team welcomes feedback on any aspect of the magazine. Just send your comments to the editor at avail@sungardas.com

Kind regards,

Gary Watson
General Manager Ireland

ON CLOUD NINE, OR EXPERIENCING A ‘CLOUD HANGOVER’?

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SungardAS_Cloud_Infographic_Section1_Invitation2Join_500That’s the question asked in the latest thought leadership campaign by Sungard Availability Services, which explores whether a move to the cloud has made IT decision-makers fizz with excitement or given them a costly hangover. It was triggered by research undertaken in Ireland, the UK, France and Sweden that found unexpected costs, integration challenges and increased IT complexity are costing UK businesses alone over £1bn a year.

Although the cloud can be a simpler and more flexible way for businesses to manage their IT, one size does not fit all and the survey found that teething problems in implementing and managing initial cloud deployments have led to unexpected challenges for many. These include unplanned spend due to unforeseen costs such as:

  • People to manage deployment (44%)
  • Internal software maintenance (42%)
  • Systems integration (40%).

Worryingly, 43% have been stung for costs related to managing their cloud service provider, suggesting that some vendors may not have been as transparent as they should during the initial consultancy phase.

Although over half (55%) of companies turned to the cloud in the hope of reducing their IT costs nearly a third (28%) say this goal has not been achieved.

Interestingly, the survey revealed marked national differences. Respondents from the UK and France reported significantly higher levels of unplanned cloud spend (£270,000 and £430,000 respectively) than IT decision-makers from Ireland (£150,000) and Sweden (£230,000) and only 54% of Ireland respondents had any unplanned spend on cloud at all. This compares with 87% of UK and 81% of European respondents.

Giving a possible explanation for the findings, Keith Tilley, EVP Global Sales & Customer Services Management for Sungard AS, said, “This gap seems to point to the level of market adoption within the regions – with the UK and France investing in cloud services earlier than Ireland and Sweden. This would have given them the opportunity to learn from early adopters’ experiences.”

SungardAS_Cloud_Infographic_Section4_CloudHangover_500Disappointingly, although reducing IT complexity is among the promised benefits of the cloud, almost half (45%) of UK respondents said that cloud had actually increased the complexity of their IT infrastructure. Meanwhile, 70% claimed that cloud computing had added a new set of IT challenges, with interoperability between their existing IT estate and cloud platforms cited by 42% as their biggest issue.

“When it first emerged cloud was promised as a cure-all for any and every IT headache. However, as the market has matured it has become clear that some organisations are now left with what we have called a ‘cloud hangover’,” says Keith Tilley. “This does not represent an inherent flaw in the cloud model but is rather a consequence of the way it was adopted. By getting caught up in the hype, some organisations did not link it back to their wider business goals and failed to take account of additional considerations such as interoperability, availability and the additional expenditure linked to the cloud.

“While firms can indeed see incredible benefits from cloud computing – including agility, flexibility and cost-savings – the cloud needs to be deployed on a case-by-case basis in line with business goals and the nature of the application or workload. This research shows that organisations no longer need the enthusiasm and jargon of cloud evangelists but require practical advice for building a reliable, robust and available infrastructure.”

SungardAS_Cloud_Infographic_Section5_CounsellorNotEvangelist_500“Like many things in life, if it looks like it’s too good to be true then it probably is!” commented David Halfacre, Head of Information Services at Fujifilm. “There is no denying that IT innovation can be exciting. However, the best IT decision makers are ones who can approach the cloud from a business perspective and using IT only as a way to support and achieve the overall strategic aims of the organisation. This is how the industry should be approaching cloud computing: as a tool to deliver business demands.”

To download the full report, to take our quick quiz to see where you are on your cloud journey, or to check out our infographic,click here: www.sungardas.co.uk/cloudhangover

IRELAND EXPANSION TO IMPROVE INFRASTRUCTURE & SERVICES

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Sungard Availability Services has partnered with data centre provider Digital Realty in our most significant expansion in the Irish market to date, giving customers access to even bigger and better facilities in Ireland that will allow us to offer new cloud services later this year.

As a crucial gateway for US-based organisations seeking to do business in Europe, we have seen increased demand from organisations looking to host their data in Ireland and to benefit from the latest infrastructure and knowledge economy that is rapidly developing in the country. This expansion will ensure that our customers and other rapidly growing organisations located both in Ireland and around the world can benefit from our global cloud platform and managed services, based on Irish soil.

The partnership with Digital Realty will provide a state-of-the-art Certified Tier III facility and underlying infrastructure from which we can host our award-winning(1) global cloud platform and full range of production and recovery solutions. Customers will also have access to Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) – for which we were recently identified as a leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for DRaaS(2) .

Ireland data hall_500Gary Watson, General Manager of Sungard AS Ireland, remarked, “This expansion will not only help us evolve our current services for customers but will also enable us to attract more business from across the world – and the resultant jobs – to the area.”

Commenting on the decision to work with Digital Realty, Gary Watson explained, “When selecting a data centre partner we wanted to find the right premises that could provide a robust infrastructure needed to underpin our services. And we needed a data centre environment that boasts strong resilience and backup facilities, as well as high levels of security accreditation. We work with Digital Realty in other territories, and know that its technology is of the highest standard, so we are proud to be able to continue to offer our customers best of breed services.”

Based in Digital Profile Park, a modern business park near Dublin’s city centre, Digital Realty’s facility boasts high speed connectivity and network access to the US, UK and Europe, and is located alongside global technology leaders including Microsoft and Google. The agreement with Digital Realty offers Sungard AS the potential to expand the amount of data centre space over time in line with customers’ growth requirements.

William Stein, CEO of Digital Realty, said: “The Irish market continues to benefit from the investments that many large and successful technology organisations such as Sungard AS are making in the country. Ireland’s infrastructure supports the high speed, low latency networks that are vital to a variety of businesses, ranging from cloud providers, large financial organisations and social media giants.

“We are impressed with the portfolio of services that Sungard AS delivers, which we are already helping to deliver across the US. We believe that this latest partnership will attract even more investment into Ireland, as well as giving organisations access to world-class production and recovery solutions.”

Spotlight on compliance and sustainability

CompaIreland outside_500nies are now facing increased pressure and scrutiny for their data protection and compliance policies, and this will only increase with the new EU General Data Protection regulation laws currently set to come into force in 2017. Digital Profile Park, along with being Ireland’s only Tier III facility, is also PCI DSS level and ISO 27001 accredited – complimenting and extending Sungard AS’ own such certification awarded at the beginning of 2015.

This new facility in Ireland also marks a move towards higher levels of sustainability for Sungard AS. The data centre is fully in compliance with BREEAM(3)  standards, as well as LEED, Green Globe, CEEDA and BCA Greenmark certifications. In 2014 just under a quarter of power used for its facilities were from renewable energy sources such as wind, solar and hydro.

As well as addressing Ireland’s growing demand for agile, flexible and resilient IT services, this expansion will enable us to further invest in our dedicated Workplace Recovery capabilities. A new technology hub in Dublin enables the building out of our existing Park West facility, creating up to 300 additional dedicated end-user positions, to which firms can relocate their critical personnel.

The new facility will go live and be available for customer operations in Q3, 2015.

If you’d like to find out more about this new facility, please contact your Account Manager or email us at avail@sungardas.com.

 

(1) Cisco Partner Awards Cloud Partner of the Year UKI 2015, 2014; NetApp Partner Awards Innovative Cloud Services 2015; NetApp Partner Awards Cloud Services Provider Highly Commended 2015; Datacloud Cloud End User Innovation -Finalist 2015

(2) Gartner Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service by John P Morency, Christine Tenneson, 4/21/2015

(3) Building Research Establishment Environmental Assessment Methodology

FUJIFILM CHOOSES SUNGARD AS CLOUD TO SCALE UP IN A FLASH

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For FUJIFILM availability is paramount, ensuring the images at the heart of its business are always readily accessible. With ambitions to expand worldwide, it needed a scalable, flexible and secure technology platform provided by a company with global reach. It found the solution in our Managed Private Cloud, which comes with a Service Level Agreement-backed commitment to 99.99% availability.

FUJIFILM’s popular Fujipix product allows people to print their digital photos on a variety of items including photo books, mugs, coasters, clothing and keyrings to make truly personal gifts and mementoes. Images are stored in the cloud for editing at home or in one of FUJIFILM’s shops or kiosks, with images either printed in store or sent by post. If consumers were unable to access their photos instantly the Fujipix service would grind to a halt and FUJIFILM’s reputation would suffer irreparable damage. Consequently, high availability around the clock is critical.

Kyran O’Kelly, General Manager for FUJIFILM Ireland, explains, “We’re not just storing people’s images, we’re preserving precious memories that have huge sentimental value. After all, photos are always the first thing people say they would rescue in a fire after children and pets. A resilient cloud infrastructure is absolutely vital.”

While FUJIFILM found Sungard AS’s resilient infrastructure important, ultimately the decision boiled down to Sungard AS’s proven expertise. “In business it’s the people that matter and the people in Sungard AS’s technical team were some of the best I’ve worked with,” says Pamal Sharma, head of IT for the UK and Ireland. “I feel we’re on the same side and regard them as an extension of my own IT team.”

 

“We’re not just storing people’s images, we’re preserving precious memories. A resilient cloud infrastructure is absolutely vital.”

Kyran O’Kelly, General Manager for FUJIFILM Ireland

FUFIFILM video capture_2_resized

Watch the video

 

FUJIFILM was so satisfied with the uninterrupted service it receives that it renewed its original contract and the two companies have now been working together for more than eight years. “A big factor in the decision to choose Sungard AS again was the reliability we’ve enjoyed to date. There would be a huge risk in moving elsewhere and we couldn’t be sure of building the same deep relationship.”

In addition to the UK and Ireland, Sungard AS powers the Fujipix service in four other countries – Germany, Spain, Denmark and Austria – and Kyran O’Kelly has ambitions to expand even further. With the rest of Continental Europe in his sights, he values the flexibility and scalability offered by the Sungard AS solution. Sungard AS’s global reach is another plus for the fast-growing company, as Kyran O’Kelly demonstrates. “I like having the backing of a large, international company but the flexibility and helpful attitude of a smaller business – we get the best of both worlds and our two companies are a good cultural match.”

Click here to download the full case study

 

CONDUCTING THE CLOUD ORCHESTRA

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Sungard Availability Services has helped many customers move to hybrid cloud environments, but we’ve noticed some customers experiencing difficulty in managing the various service providers who deliver different aspects of the service, such as middleware and apps, and making them all work well together.

In response, we have developed Service Integration techniques to help the customer co-ordinate their supply chain. This works by integrating the Service Management processes from each supplier involved to provide end customers with a seamless, end-to-end service that can meet or exceed agreed levels of service to their business.

Some larger businesses have already developed effective Service Management practices that enable them to manage their IT services and meet required business outcomes. This involves having a thorough understanding of each service, how it fits together and who provides support for each component, whether this is performed in-house or outsourced to a specialist provider.

We’ve found it is smaller firms taking their tentative first steps towards realising the benefits that cloud-based services can provide which tend to suffer teething problems. This may be because they have not yet developed mature processes or have the expertise necessary to co-ordinate the supply chain delivering the complete service.

Recognising this dilemma, Sungard AS’s Cloud & Infrastructure consulting practice has developed a set of tools and methods to ensure firms that outsource their platforms and infrastructure maintain their service levels to the business. Our consultants use ITIL codes of practice to provide a common language that helps integrate customers’ processes with our own and a proprietary SMILe (Service Management Integration Layer) methodology.

Benefits at a glance:

  • Ensures a smooth migration to the cloud
  • Continuous service delivered to the business
  • Maintained service levels help customers achieve agreed service standards
  • Increased efficiency through streamlining and integration of processes across the supply chain

To explore whether your business could benefit from our Service Integration offering, speak to your Account Manager or email avail@sungardas.com

YOU’VE COME TO THE RIGHT PLACE

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BC Awards 2015_Keith_500We’re ecstatic to share the news of two wins at the CIR Business Continuity Awards 2015 that crown a very successful first half of the year for Sungard Availability Services. EVP Keith Tilley was honoured with the Lifetime Achievement Award in recognition of his “outstanding achievement within the business continuity/resilience arenas and professional excellence over the course of a significant career in the industry.”

According to the judges, Keith’s “high level of professional credibility, considerable public relations profile and the level of respect in which he is held within the industry in general” were significant factors.

We were also proud to receive recognition from both our customers and peers in being awarded the Best Contribution to Resilience & Continuity title. We extend our warmest congratulations to several longstanding Sungard AS customers whose achievements were also recognised: Ray Yamin of Royal Bank of Canada was honoured as BC Manager of the Year while further awards went to Marks & Spencer and Guardian News & Media.

While not an exhaustive list, here’s a round-up of some of the other accolades received so far this year:

Cisco Partner Summit 2015

Demonstrating the global nature of our work with Cisco, Sungard AS scored a ‘grand slam’ with the work of our Cisco partnership recognised in the UK and Ireland as well as the US and Canadian markets. We took home four major wins on the night, including:

  • UK and Ireland Solution Innovation Partner of the Year
  • Americas Cloud Partner of the Year
  • Canadian Cloud Partner of the Year
  • Marketing Velocity Innovator of the Year.

Having worked with Cisco for over 15 years it is exciting to see how our relationship continues to evolve, with Sungard AS now working as one Cisco’s most trusted partners in cloud environments – helping numerous customers achieve their business goals. And as one of the first supporters of the upcoming Cisco Intercloud, our cooperation will only deepen as we use the Intercloud Fabric to design robust, flexible and available cloud environments for customers.

NetApp Partner Awards 2015

_ABU4235, 4235We were also triumphant at the NetApp Partner Awards, taking home the accolade for ‘Innovative Cloud Services’ for our Sungard AS-powered Police App Store, a unique community-focused application store that delivers a powerful suite of applications for UK police forces, which was enabled by our close working relationships with both NetApp and Cisco.

We were also highly commended in NetApp’s Service Provider of the Year category. ​

BCI Europe Awards 2015

BCIEurope_Winners_Pic_SungardAssuranceCM_All_2015_500We’re thrilled to report that AssuranceCM, our next-generation Software as a Service solution, scooped the top prize in the Continuity & Resilience Provider (Product) category of the prestigious BCI European Awards.

 

 

 

BCI India Awards 2015

BCI India awards_500The Sungard AS India team was awarded the Provider of the Year (Service and Product) title for the third consecutive year since 2013, as well as another accolade – the Continuity & Resilience Innovation Award – for AssuranceCM.

The BCI India Awards recognise the outstanding contribution of BC professionals and organisations in the Indian subcontinent, which spans 15 countries including Afghanistan, Armenia, Azerbaijan, Bangladesh, Bhutan, India, Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Maldives, Nepal, Pakistan, Sri Lanka, Tajikistan, Turkmenistan and Uzbekistan.

All winners from the BCI European and India Awards will be automatically entered into the Global Awards that take place in London during BCM World in November.

Keith Tilley remarks, “These awards are a perfect demonstration of our continuing commitment to delivering the highest standards of business continuity for our customers. Working to shift the industry’s outlook from being a recovery-led process to one of All-TimeTM availability, we have worked hard to help organisations understand the importance of an always-on mindset and these efforts have been recognised.”

Look out for more awards news in the next edition of AVAIL!

GARTNER AWARDS SUNGARD AS TOP SPOT IN MAGIC QUADRANT

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Leading analyst Gartner has awarded Sungard Availability Services the sought-after top right ‘Leader’ position in its first Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS)(1) published at the end of April.

Gartner-Magic-Quadrant_500Gartner evaluated 14 DRaaS providers on ability to execute on criteria including product/service, overall viability, sales execution/pricing, market responsiveness/record, marketing execution, customer experience and operations, as well as completeness of vision. It rated our offering superior to that of all the companies analysed.

The analyst noted, “Sungard AS provides one-stop solutions for the integrated management of applications and data recovery previously supported by point services. Crash-consistent and application-consistent recovery across multi-tier applications (both physical and virtual) is supported.”

Sungard AS’s challenge to the established perception that DRaaS is limited to automated recovery to the cloud was a decisive factor in the Gartner positioning. Jack Dziak, Executive Vice President, Global Products for Sungard AS, explains, “We take the view that disaster recovery is about much more than just recovering data and applications to the cloud because we find most of our customers live with hybrid environments in the truest sense of the word. Their IT infrastructure tends to encompass not only public and private clouds but also virtualised and physical legacy systems too. It would be both illogical and unhelpful to set out to recover only a small part of a customer’s IT environment, which is why, almost uniquely in the marketplace, we have taken a wider view.”

This latest review follows hot on the heels of a 2014 Forrester WaveTM report(2), which concluded Sungard AS leads “in a tight race of strong competitors…excel in their current offering and their strategies. …offers very flexible solutions that cover the entire resiliency spectrum and allows users to pick from an array of standardized offerings to ensure that their needs are met.”

When evaluating approaches to RaaS analysts ESG also singled out Sungard AS as a provider that is getting it right. You can hear what they said here.

Click here to download a complimentary copy of the 2015 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service.

 

 

(1) Gartner Inc: Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service – 21 April 2015 ID:G00270861

(2) Forrester Research: Disaster Recovery as a Service Providers Q1 2014 – 17.1.14

DEMAND GROWS FOR RAAS

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Many in the market see RaaS as ‘Disaster Recovery in the cloud’. That view is looking increasingly outdated especially as executives are looking to have the whole business recovered – not just the data and the hardware.

This year, we saw independent analysts redefine RaaS as an availability capability that extends to processes and people as well as the technology. After all, it’s only when all three are recovered and available that you can truthfully say you have recovered the business. This viewpoint was recognised by Gartner which awarded Sungard Availability Services its coveted Leader position in its first Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service(1) (DRaaS). Read more in the ‘Gartner awards Sungard AS top spot in Magic Quadrant’ article’.

The extent of the discipline required to recover the business is increasingly dawning on executives whose first priority is to grow the business whilst running a tight ship. And that means there just aren’t the resources – people and skillsets – left over to ensure the business can meet its Recovery Time Objectives (RTO).

Recovery statistics bear this out. Despite the rapid growth of recover to cloud solutions, 73% of businesses describe their DR readiness as failing2 – a figure that hasn’t changed significantly for decades. We believe the reason for this is that businesses typically tend to focus on testing a specific application, server or group of applications and servers, rather than the business as a whole. This means when they need to recover from a real-world incident they do not have the skills, experience and know-how to meet business expectations in terms of Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO).

Until 2012 when we launched our Managed Recovery Programme, executives were admittedly sceptical about the ability of a third party to deliver a full recovery programme back to them as a service but once they saw the effort invested by Sungard AS to keep the recovery environment, assets and scripts updated and aligned with their production environment, they realised they were never going to be able to achieve recovery themselves under the cost and resource constraints they were facing.

Businesses and the IT function, in particular, have become far more disparate and complex with extended value chains. Hybrid infrastructures that span Cloud, SaaS, Colo and on-premise environments are now the norm rather than the exception. Without specialist expertise, experience and time to devote to the task it’s all too difficult to recover. Much as in the same way that 30 years ago you could repair cars at home fairly easily, now they are hugely sophisticated, computerised pieces of machinery. You lift the bonnet, look bemused, quickly shut it and call the garage which knows what it’s doing.

It’s this realisation that has triggered a 400% growth in our RaaS business with more and more customers specifying Managed Recovery Programmes as part of their contract renewals.

As Chris Ducker, Head of European Propositions for Sungard AS, puts it (continuing the car metaphor), “Our RaaS is like the pit crew of a formula one team. You design the company and car. We’ll run and maintain it using the very best technicians who are constantly monitoring its performance, looking for risks and ensuring it’s always ready to race. But should another car bump into it, we’ll repair and maintain it in the fastest possible time giving you the best chance of winning the race.”

 

If you would like to explore how RaaS from Sungard AS could benefit your business, talk to your account manager or email us at avail@sungardas.com

 

(1)Gartner Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service: 21 April 2015 ID:G00270861

(2)Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council_2014 Benchmark Survey

DESKTOP AS A SERVICE IN THE SPOTLIGHT

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CIR cover_500With Desktop as a Service (DaaS) solutions fast becoming mainstream, the May edition of CIR magazine carried a feature on the technologies that support the new shape of the modern workplace. As “work” increasingly becomes something we do rather than somewhere we go, offices today are evolving into a place primarily for meetings and collaborative work while individual remote working becomes the norm.

This will result in a fundamental shift towards flexible working – enabling people to work at different times from various locations – which means businesses are relying on technology solutions such as DaaS to manage their current and future flexible working strategies.

In the article Sungard Availability Services’ Daren Howell explains how DaaS enables a new generation of workplace productivity, without compromising security or availability. Benefits include:

  • Makes firms more agile, able to rapidly scale up or down to cope with demand peaks
  • Centrally managed and controlled desktops mean your data remains in the data centre, not on the device
  • Migration to new software and security patches can be deployed faster and more easily
  • Lower end user support costs
  • Allows employees to use their own devices and applications without compromising the integrity of the organisation’s IT systems
  • Ensures productivity is maintained in the face of wide area disruptions by enabling staff to work from home – or indeed anywhere there is access to power, a device and a network.
  • By supporting anywhere, anytime working, DaaS could end the misery of the daily commute for many staff!

If you’d like to read the full story you can download a copy of the DaaS supplement here.

HOW ARE WE DOING?

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By the time you read this our annual customer survey will be well underway and we will present the main findings in the autumn edition of AVAIL.

The 2015 survey of 200 randomly selected customers is again being conducted by an external research firm via confidential phone interviews and covers the following areas:

  • Overall satisfaction
  • Contracts, invoicing and administration
  • Sales contact
  • Pre-sales and Solution Architects
  • On-boarding
  • Managed Services
  • Project Management
  • Service Management
  • Recovery facilities including handling of alerts/invocations
  • Site facilities
  • Consulting
  • Software
  • Marketing communications
  • General customer research questions
  • Contact with Sungard Availability Services

As you know, we take the survey findings extremely seriously, using them to identify our strengths and focus our improvement efforts as we strive to continually improve our service. If you are one of the customers chosen to take part thank you for sharing your views with us but if you were not selected for the survey please be assured we welcome your feedback at any time of the year. Simply email AS.IE.ServiceDesk@Sungardas.com with your comments and suggestions.