Foreword: Welcome to the Autumn Edition of AVAIL

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Welcome to the autumn edition of AVAIL, which contains some highly topical stories reflecting the news headlines. In a thought-provoking article, Dr Sandra Bell, Sungard AS’ head of resilience consulting in Europe, explains why recovering from a terror attack can be more complex than it seems. We also share the real-life experience of customer Augentius whose London office was caught up in the London Bridge attacks this summer. While on this subject, Chris Butler, one of our cyber resilience and security consultants, gives some useful pointers for communicating clearly in a crisis.

As the latest BCI cyber resilience report confirms, ransomware continues to be a huge threat worldwide and Sungard AS has produced a new guide that provides a framework to help IT and security leaders approach this risk in a structured, methodical way. We caught up with Sungard AS’ global chief security officer Shawn Burke to talk about the growing problem – read the interview here.

Following the departure of Keith Tilley for pastures new, we introduce you to chief marketing officer Kathy Schneider who will build on the strong foundations laid by him over nearly 40 years. You can find out more about Kathy’s background and the recent organisational changes at Sungard AS here.

Elsewhere, we introduce Lee Webb, the new chair of the Sungard AS European Customer Advisory Board who talks about his plans in the role.

Finally, I hope you enjoy this issue and welcome your feedback on any aspect of the magazine. If you have any comments, please email me at AS.UK.AvailEditor@sungardas.com.

Jenna Powell

Editor

Changing of the Guard

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As you may know, Keith Tilley, our EVP and Co-Chair, left Sungard Availability Services at the end of September after almost four decades with the company.  Keith explained, “While this was not a decision that I reached lightly, I feel this is a great time to spend more time with my family, as well as to pursue some other professional interests that have me intrigued.  As most of you know, I’ve been with the business nearly 40 years.  I’ve had the great pleasure of leading teams throughout our journey from a traditional recovery business to what we are today – a fully resilient and recoverable infrastructure solutions provider. 

He continues, “No matter how long you’ve been a Sungard AS customer, I’m confident you’ve seen many changes over the years as we’ve continued to evolve our business to meet your needs. I have every confidence the business will continue to evolve and thrive to remain competitive in the market, and to deliver truly integrated recovery and production solutions that you’ve come to rely on us to deliver.”

Keith is well-known to many Sungard AS customers, and the industry as a whole, and leaves huge shoes to fill. However, we are delighted to share the news that his role representing the voice of the customer, bringing customer experience and market perspective to all business decisions to Sungard AS, will be fulfilled by a new London-based Chief Marketing Officer, Kathy Schneider who reports direct to Andy Stern, Chief Executive Officer for Sungard AS. Kathy officially joined us on 29 August and is responsible for Global Marketing, Global Market Strategy, and Corporate Communications.

Kathy brings more than two decades of technology and business-to-business marketing experience at both pre-IPO and Fortune 500 companies. She joins us most recently from Level 3 Communications where she was Senior Vice President, Product and Marketing – EMEA. Prior to Level 3, Kathy was with Criteo, a publicly-traded technology company specialising in digital marketing and big data. At Criteo she held a global role on the executive leadership team as Senior Vice President, Marketing & Communications.

Before that, she worked at Dell Inc for 14 years in a variety of marketing leadership roles in the US and EMEA. While at Dell, she gained extensive experience leading marketing functions at a country, regional and global level. She has spent the last 13 years working and living in London with her family and has dual US. and UK citizenship.

Remarking on her new role, Kathy said: “For more than 35 years, Sungard AS has been reputed as the market leader for delivering recovery solutions that keep enterprises and organizations ‘always on’ and able to meet their business objectives.  Over the last several years, the company has transformed its solutions portfolio to also offer fully resilient production and recovery services.  I am thrilled to be joining Sungard AS at such a pivotal time as it continues to evolve its solutions portfolio and help customers across their entire IT deployment.”

We also announce that Charles Quinn joined the Sungard AS team in August as Senior Vice President, EMEA Sales and is based in London.   Charles brings over 25 years of sales and leadership experience working for some of the most successful technology companies in the world, such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell, Microsoft and others. In each of these organisations, Charles has a proven track-record of building strong growth positions in highly competitive markets.

Most recently, Charles served as Group Managing Director for ECS, a fast-growing and award-winning IT consultancy and professional services company.  In this capacity, he was responsible for the group strategy, growth and results delivery.  Revenue grew impressively under his leadership.  Prior to ECS, he spent a considerable length of time with Hewlett-Packard where, among other roles he notably served as a Vice President for a key division within EMEA.  Throughout his career, Charles has established himself as a highly-respected business leader with a customer-centric and engaging leadership approach.

Keith played a huge part in shaping Sungard AS into the company it is today and we are sure you will join us in wishing him all the best in the next stage of his career, and at the same time, extend a warm welcome to Kathy and Charles.

Organisational Response to Terrorism

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New whitepaper: Why you need more than just a business continuity plan.

Continuing business activities in the immediate aftermath of a terrorist attack is easier said than done, according to Dr Sandra Bell, Sungard Availability Services’ head of resilience consulting (Europe), in her newly-published white paper ‘Organisational Response to Terrorism – why you need more than just business continuity’. While effective Business Continuity and ICT Disaster Recovery plans will, in most cases, get an organisation back on track, companies must realise that the whole eco-system within which they operate has also been damaged and consider the effects on their wider business networks.

So, while overcoming their immediate practical issues such as prolonged denial of access to buildings, either due to damage or because of evidence-gathering activities, organisations should also pay close attention to their stakeholder relationships.

 

Perception is everything

In the business continuity world, we place great emphasis on getting back to ‘business as usual (BAU)’ following disruptive incidents such as a terrorist attack.   However, Dr Bell points out that trust between members of the business ecosystem can be easily broken if the organisation’s response is seen by employees, partners, clients or stakeholders to be overly selfish, insular or entirely commercially-focused. Likewise, if insufficient empathy is displayed in the face of public outrage, an organisation’s position within the socio-economic web can be threatened.

Dr Bell explains that in today’s interconnected world, when responding to incidents that have the potential to cause more than just a small glitch to operations, organisations need to understand that their disruption will also be felt by others. In fact, the impact can be devastating due to what economists call the “multiplier” and “ripple” effects – a phenomenon explained in her paper.

Furthermore, if the incident that caused the disruption could create fear and anxiety at a personal level, as they do in the case of terrorist attacks, the response needs to be seen to be overtly ethical. This means that a blatant emphasis on the resumption of business activities or the use of proactive tactics such as capitalising on competitors’ weaknesses or launching blatantly pre-emptive communications are seen as negative.

In reality, failing to demonstrate empathy or not being seen to respond ethically can dangerously backfire in any situation where the incident that caused the disruption evokes public outrage, as has recently been demonstrated by the former leader of Kensington and Chelsea Borough Council following the Grenfell Tower fire and before him, the former chief executive officer of BP following the Deepwater Horizon oil spill.

 

Impact on the organisation’s ecosystem

In short, at the same time that operations are being fixed, compassion and empathy needs to be extended to everyone with which the organisation has a relationship with, and specifically to those that rely on it for either their social or economic well-being. For example, the small cleaning company whose business model relies entirely on cleaning the organisation’s offices to survive, or the non-exec who is currently helping position the organisation for that merger and acquisition. The organisation also needs to be prepared to work on those relationships during the incident and perhaps temporarily change the balance of the reciprocal arrangements to help a “friend in need”.

Organisations that get the operations-empathy-ethics balance right will emerge from the disruption in a stronger position from which they entered it. They will enjoy greater loyalty from those that they paid attention to and they will be seen as a positive ‘multiplier’ and therefore increase their potential for profitable partnering in the future[1]’ [2].

Org Response to Terrorism_whitepaper coverDownload the white paper

Speak to your account manager or email avail@sungardas.com to find out how Sungard AS Consulting Services can assist your organisation.

 

 

 

[1] Knight, Jerry (1982) “Tylenol’s Maker Shows How to Respond to a Crisis” The Washington Post October 11 1982

[2] Larissa Tiedens, Fiona Lee and Christopher Peterson (2004) “Admitting Missteps May Boost Stock Prices” Available from: www.gsb.stanford.edu/news/research/ob_corpresponsibility.shtml

Resilient Culture Ensures Business as Usual for Augentius

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Augentius_Logo_Black_500

 

Longstanding Sungard Availability Services customer Augentius, one of the largest independent private equity and real estate fund administrators in the world, found itself caught up in the 2017 London Bridge atrocity in which three terrorists killed eight people and injured 48.

The combined vehicle ramming and stabbing attack took place directly outside Augentius’ London office, resulting in its evacuation and closure to allow the police to collect forensic evidence. Faced with denial of access to its premises, Augentius activated its disaster recovery (DR) and business continuity (BC) plans.

The incident occurred late on a Saturday night, which allowed the firm to monitor the situation on Sunday and plan its response before the new business week began. By late Sunday afternoon it became apparent that access to its office on Monday morning was unlikely. Augentius’ London DR team met via conference call and plans were put in place on the basis that the building would continue to be unavailable for the next 24 hours. This included invoking Sungard AS’ Docklands Workplace Recovery Centre and preparation of IT systems to allow staff to work from home. Finally, all staff were notified of the situation and advised not to travel into the London office until further notice.

The DR team met again via conference call at 0700 hours on Monday 5 June, having monitored the situation since 0600 hours with the premises manager. When it was confirmed that access to the London office was still not possible, Augentius implemented its DR plan. Staff were updated at 0730 hours as promised, confirming that the office was closed and that they should not travel in to London, and then clients emailed at 0830. From 0900 onwards, these emails were supplemented by personal calls from Augentius’ client service teams.

When the business day began some 60% of Augentius’ client service staff were either remotely logged into the company’s systems from home or working from the Sungard AS DR site with over 95% being fully operational by 1000 hours. In line with good practice, Augentius tests its IT systems annually, has put in place an emergency notification system and contracts a number of Workplace Recovery positions for key employees at one of Sungard AS’ workplace recovery centres.

The smooth arrangements ensured all client deliverables were achieved during the course of the day.

David Bailey, Marketing & Communications Director for Augentius, who led the firm’s response admits, “Terror attacks weren’t front of mind when we developed our business continuity plans. After all, most disruptions are caused by plumbers or builders drilling through cables.”

He explains, “Shocking as the event was, this was probably the simplest BC problem we could have. We were essentially just locked out of our premises – all our communications and other systems were fully operational and we had plenty of time to think about our response. As the attack took place at the weekend, fortunately none of our staff were endangered or witnessed upsetting scenes so we weren’t having to deal with people who were injured or worse.

“Having said that, coming back to work on Tuesday morning was pretty horrendous – it was blowing a gale, London Bridge was still partially closed and the whole area was mobbed with TV cameras and reporters. It was a surreal environment and some staff did struggle with that and went home early that day. Everyone has access to counselling via our health insurance plan and we encouraged teams to chat among themselves, brought in cake and fruit and were generally aware of the stresses that existed.”

According to Dr Sandra Bell, Head of Resilience Consulting (Europe) for Sungard Availability Services, Augentius’ successful response to the crisis was due to its “resilient corporate culture characterised by employees who know what is expected of them and a management team that can think on its feet and make business decisions without panicking.”

She notes, “The Augentius team had excellent situational awareness and associated PR and communications, which meant everyone knew what was going on and they were able to remain fully in control.”

Nonetheless, David Bailey believes lessons can always be learned and the firm has since refined its BC plans as a result.

Lessons learned

1  Due to holidays and other personal events, it was difficult to get in touch with some DR team members over the weekend. As a result, alternative lines of communication have been put in place.

2  Augentius was initially unable to ascertain whether any of its employees had been caught up in the attack as staff were not specifically instructed to acknowledge the emergency message to confirm they were safe. Message wording will now be changed and the emergency communication system tested quarterly by different groups of staff to encourage familiarity with the system.

3  The firm’s email alert system worked but it became apparent that call lists were out of date and did not include temporary and contract staff. This has now been rectified.

4  The company was unable to reroute all of its telephone numbers, roughly 100, quickly so as a short-term fix, it transferred the office reception number to a mobile phone, enabling calls to be answered and handled. However, it is now evaluating software to redirect its direct dial numbers in the event of a future emergency.

5  The incident drove home the importance of reviewing BC plans every 12 months to ensure they are still fit for purpose. For example, Augentius has grown from a business of seven people to over 600 since it drew up its continuity plans and its BC team has grown accordingly. Today, the company has BC teams in each of its eight international offices, each of which handles local incidents while a global BC team will handle any wide area events. Its plans have been updated regularly to reflect this.

Even before the terror attacks, David Bailey had never doubted the value of having business continuity provision. “It’s a fact of business life – you never know what’s coming down the track. The fact that our plans have been put to the test and proved effective is important. Many of our clients are regulated businesses so they need to have the comfort that not only do we have contingency measures in place but that they will work when called on.”

 

Communicating Clearly in a Crisis

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By Chris Butler, Principal Consultant, Cyber Resilience and Security, Sungard Availability Services.

To quote business magnate Warren Buffet, “It takes 20 years to build a reputation and five minutes to ruin it.” Years on from that memorable statement, I wager it would take much less than five minutes in our ‘always on’ world to suffer reputational damage.

We are unable to open the newspapers or turn on the television today without bearing witness to the latest victim of a cyberattack,  recent example being the hack of American TV giant HBO whose money-spinning series Game of Thrones was leaked around the world.

The threat is certainly growing: a recent report revealed that cyberattacks rose by a quarter in Q2 2017. In a world overwhelmed by social media, news of such a disaster can go international in the time it takes to say ‘cyber-breach.’ And the potential fall-out of a crisis? Damage to your business’ reputation, negative effects on share price and a detrimental impact on staff morale.

If a data breach takes place, organisations must be in the position to communicate information instantaneously and precisely to all parties affected – customers, partners, vendors and staff. However, by their nature crises are unique, unpredictable, and can go far beyond any eventuality you’ve planned for. (Hence the rueful observation by one business continuity practitioner that “We’re always planning for our last disaster.”) So, how can organisations ensure they’re prepared to respond in the most effective way possible?

There are two types of communication that are needed to support a crisis management programme. Both require sufficient preparation to ensure a swift and appropriate response in times of crisis, and that those impacted are kept in the loop by business leaders – not a random social media post.

 

Pre-defined messages

These should be the cornerstone of any good crisis management programme and are crucial to avoid wasting time deliberating on what to say as the crisis unfolds. But how do you go about developing them?

Organisations need to dedicate time to identifying potential scenarios, developing the appropriate messaging templates and selecting appropriate communications channels for each situation. We recommend carrying out a comprehensive stakeholder analysis to identify the parties who will need to be informed as a priority, and agreeing what they need to know. Constructing and clearing provisional statements in advance will place your business in a much stronger position to respond quickly and accurately.

 

Tailored Response

Tailored responses are unique to a particular crisis. While it is not possible to prepare for every single crisis outcome, this does not justify neglecting foresight, groundwork or planning. As someone, somewhere once said, the only thing harder than planning for an emergency is explaining why you didn’t. Carrying out simulation exercises to educate and train crisis teams, familiarise them with possible outcomes, and uncover opportunities and gaps in their programme(s) will help them develop a readiness mentality. This then places them in a much stronger position to manage threats to their organisation.

It’s crucial to enlist a crisis communications team, led from the board, embedded at the heart of your business and possessing a sound understanding of the risks and threats posed to the organisation. However, in a crisis the onus is not just on the defined crisis communications team. Senior management will need to be media-trained to respond to untoward situations to reduce damage to business brand, to keep staff feeling focused and motivated and to engender confidence among stakeholders.  They will be a vital conduit to creating market goodwill while the business establishes the nature and scope of the threat; reinstates or bolsters systems or operational integrity and addresses any customer impacts.

And when crafting your communications, it is worth remembering that, as Winston Scott, Director of Florida Space Port so pithily noted, “At the onset of an emergency, everyone’s IQ goes immediately to ‘0’”.

Weathering a crisis will depend entirely on your organisation’s ability to arm itself and remain level-headed when the time comes. Businesses who deliver well-considered communications in the event of a cyber-attack will be the ones to demonstrate foresight and agility; repositioning themselves as a stronger and more resilient force.

 

To find out how Sungard AS Consulting Services can assist your organisation, speak to your account manager or email avail@sungardas.com

 

About the author

As principal consultant for cyber resilience and security at Sungard AS, Chris Butler leads the development of services that integrate traditional information security products within a wider framework of organisational and cyber resilience.

Following a 20-year Army career in aviation, security and counter-terrorism, Chris moved into consulting. Initially with a large oil/gas firm helping major projects to close out and learn from experience, then into the nuclear sector. Working in security and resilience, Chris provided expert consultancy covering crisis, emergency and incident management; policies and plans for preparedness and response. He has further experience in strategy execution consultancy, including programme and risk management, and executive coaching in the legal, financial and health/nutrition sectors.

BCI Cyber Resilience Report Paints Worrying Picture

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BCI resilience report coverA new report published by the BCI and sponsored by Sungard Availability Services confirms cyberattacks are a constantly evolving threat that is growing more dangerous by the day. The organisations surveyed spanned a variety of industry sectors including finance and insurance (29%), IT and communications (19%), professional services (16%) and health and social care (7%).

The report notes that the top three cyber-attacks continue to be phishing/social engineering, malware and ‘spear-phishing’ (an email-spoofing attack that targets a specific organisation or individual), while new entrant ransomware sits at number five. With fresh cyberattacks making news headlines on an almost daily basis, it is reassuring that 60% of senior management claim to have a high commitment to cyber resilience.

Around two out of three organisations (64%) reported at least one cyber disruption in the last twelve months, while some 15% had experienced more than ten. More alarmingly, roughly one in six organisations did not know whether a disruption had occurred or not, which suggests a lack of cybersecurity awareness in the organisation and the likely presence of information silos.

The survey of 734 business continuity and risk management professionals reveals that more than two-thirds of those surveyed (67%) take over an hour to respond to a cyber incident, with 16% admitting to a response time of four hours or more. This is a cause for concern as industry experts recommend responding to an incident within the first hour of discovery, commonly known as the ‘golden hour’.

In the Middle East & North Africa, the picture is even worse with only 12% taking less than hour to react to a cyber incident and one in three (33%) taking three hours or longer.

The research showed validation is key to building cyber resilience, with 55% of organisations testing their cyber resilience capabilities through exercising while 47% conduct penetration tests.

About a third of the respondents (33%) suffered disruptions costing more than €50,000, while more than one in ten (13%) experienced losses of €250,000 or more. Segmenting the data for small and medium enterprises (SMEs), which made up a quarter of the sample, showed that 18% suffered a disruption of €50,000 or more. Considering that 40% of the SMEs involved in the survey have an annual turnover of less than €1 million, these appear to be significant losses.

On a brighter note, several respondents stated how business continuity is no longer separated from IT and cyber departments, recognition that a sound business continuity plan must take into account the effects of a malicious online attack in order to guarantee continuity in the current threat landscape.

The report concludes with four key findings:

  1. BC professionals need to collaborate and engage with their cyber/Information Security colleagues to pool their expertise and respond to incidents, something that increasingly appears to be happening.
  1. Reputation management remains a key driver in pushing the cyber resilience agenda with large and small organisations alike aware of the potential for damage to their brand.
  1. As supply chains continue to be more complex – 43% of survey respondents depend on more than 20 suppliers – an organisation’s cyber resilience is heavily influenced by the cyber resilience of its supply chain.
  1. As we are already seeing with the EU General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), legislative and regulatory changes are expected to drive cyber resilience as governments and data protection bodies worldwide tighten rules concerning storage and use of personal data.

Download the full report here.

Collaborative Security: CSOs Partner with the Business for Protection

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With their company’s systems, data and brand to protect, Chief Security Officers (CSOs) were once considered just the people who said “no.” Now, CSOs are abolishing the barriers that once existed between the security organisation and the rest of the business. AVAIL caught up with Sungard AS Global CSO Shawn Burke, who talks about taking on security challenges in this new era of collaborative security. 

 

Q: Shawn, you bring two decades of IT security experience to your role as CSO. With today’s cybersecurity challenges, how has life changed for the CSO?

Traditionally, cybersecurity was viewed as an IT-centric responsibility, and the CSO would focus solely on applying technical controls for mitigating threats. With the rapid evolution of technology, vast amounts of data at our disposal and regulatory requirements, cybersecurity has transformed to being more top of mind for the rest of the organisation.

Now, CSOs often have a seat at the table with the board and executive leadership. There is an expectation for the CSO to have a full understanding of business strategy and objectives and to translate that into operative information security controls. These controls are not always directly under the CSO’s charter, so they need to collaborate effectively with the rest of the organisation.

 

Q: So, it’s more of a shared ownership for security?

Yes. I recently did an interview about how to be a successful CSO and I talked about the importance of building relationships and having the communication skills to engage with the business as a trusted advisor. To learn how to influence, instead of just delegating and managing security directly.

To accomplish that, the language of security leaders is becoming less technical and more business oriented, so their risk management methodology can be clearly articulated and understood by business stakeholders.

So, as a CSO, it’s no longer just about evangelising how important security is and saying “no.” Our value comes into play when we figure out how to enable the business with different services, while they’re still being protected.

 

Q: Do you have an example of how that collaborative model works at Sungard AS?

Sure. When it comes to integrating the security function with overall business processes, one avenue taken by my team is to closely align with the Programme Management Offices. So, if there is a formal project, security requirements and review will surely be a part of the plan. The key is instituting an enforced situation for meeting those security requirements, while staying aligned with business initiatives and being a good partner.

For instance, our global operations team is responsible for monitoring our systems and responding to alerts. My role is to work with leaders in different operational areas to understand their roadmaps and influence their priorities to focus on. I give them direction, but I’m not micro managing their daily tasks.

On the architectural side, I collaborate with our product teams to make sure security is thought of right from the start with all our products and services. I don’t run the architectural function, but everyone must come through our team to validate they have met our security standards.

I also meet with our CEO Andy Stern, his direct reports and the senior management team regularly to let them know about potential risks that may be of concern in the future—and ways we can work together to mitigate those risks.

 

Q: Cyberattacks, ransomware and the Internet of Things continue to pose risks. What other things are keeping CSOs up at night?

This year, I’m also seeing vendor risk management become more of a challenging reality. I’m an advocate for businesses making that transformational shift towards a cloud infrastructure to reduce costs, and there are many cloud security benefits to take advantage of now.

When it comes to compliance, there are concerns over GDPR and how the requirements may drive business costs higher as new data protection controls are considered. Our Chief Compliance Officer has been way in front of this and has defined a roadmap for meeting those demands.

Lastly, the cyber security talent shortage continues. CSO’s will increasingly need to rely on automation for protection while they find creative ways to fill the security professional gaps.

 

Q: How does a CSO keep on top of these issues?

As mentioned in our new ransomware paper, there is no single solution to prevent an attack. That’s why you need to implement a defence-in-depth security approach, with multiple layers of proactive and reactive measures to help you prepare, detect and mitigate future attacks.

A CSO also needs reliable, close to real-time threat intelligence and should consider adaptive countermeasures, such as security behavioural analytics that show patterns and anomalies that indicate potential threats. Having sound patch management strategies and constantly educating your employees also goes a long way when it comes to prevention.

Most importantly, don’t assume everything is in tact. Keep testing your resiliency and incident response plans and conduct frequent risk assessments.

 

Q: Any last words for other CSOs?

A CSO should always be in a learning mode and never too complacent with how they are protecting their company’s data. I’m always going back and re-evaluating our security programme to make sure it’s practical from a business perspective.

Ultimately, as a CSO you need to ensure the security function is continuing to provide organisational value by helping the business be agile enough to introduce new products and services more quickly, but with the right security controls in place.

 

Prepare Detect Mitigate paper coverDownload the paper Attacking Ransomware: Prepare, Detect, Mitigate for help with facing ransomware threats.

To find out more about our Managed Security Services, speak to your account manager or visit our website.

 

Prepare, Detect, Mitigate

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A new paper that helps you face up to the ransomware threat.

An unwitting employee clicks on an email attachment and unleashes malware that propagates across your company’s network. Within moments, the malware encrypts critical databases and files, locks out users, and severely impacts company operations. The IT department scrambles to limit the damage, but it’s too late. Messages from the cybercriminal arrive – confirming that your company has just joined the unlucky ranks of ransomware victims.

Do you pay the ransom (and hope the cybercriminal will follow through on their promise to provide the decryption key), or attempt to restore your systems from backups? It’s a situation – and a decision – you don’t ever want to face. But the ransomware threat is growing and the criminals are smart and highly motivated. Companies that fail to plan ahead for ransomware attacks do so at their peril.

Now is the best time to plan defenses that can help you avoid the ransomware threat altogether, as well as deploy measures that can limit the damage of any malware that makes it through your defenses.

This new paper from Sungard AS provides a framework to help IT and security leaders approach the ransomware threat in a structured, methodical way. The paper highlights some of the key steps that Sungard AS uses to protect its own managed services clients from ransomware threats.

If you’ve already taken action to address ransomware threats, download the paper to make sure you’ve covered all the bases. If you’re starting from scratch, you’ll find that the three sections – Prepare, Detect, Mitigate – help to prioritize your efforts and fit this important effort into your overall approach to IT security and business continuity.

 

Prepare Detect Mitigate paper coverDownload the paper

To find out more about our Managed Security Services, speak to your account manager or visit our website.

Cloud Transition – Tread Carefully to Avoid Cloud Pitfalls

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shabansaddique_resizedBy Shaban Saddique, EMEA Head of Transformation, Sungard Availability Services.

In a relatively short period, cloud computing has gone from being something familiar only to a handful of early-adopter test and development users to an omnipresent, couldn’t-live-without-it technology. Organisations are increasingly moving mainstream workloads into cloud environments: public cloud spend has grown threefold from £9bn in 2013 to £27bn in 2017[1] – and rising.

During that time, it’s not only the technology that has moved on: the thinking around how to deploy cloud technology has also shifted considerably. In the early days, cloud evangelists urged enterprises to move absolutely everything to the cloud – in practice, a highly impractical recommendation that led to pain and disappointment for many organisations who are rapidly learning that a cloud environment is not advantageous, or indeed suitable, for all applications.

This realisation has resulted in the growth of the complex Hybrid IT environments that exist in organisations today, which commonly feature a mix of private cloud, public cloud and private infrastructure in hosted data centre space (colocation) alongside all-important legacy systems that are kept in-house.

It is also behind the trend towards 85% of organisations adopting a multi-cloud strategy – choosing different types of cloud for workloads with differing security, scalability and availability needs[2]. This increasing market maturity is enabling organisations to embrace digital advances and accelerate time to market. Today, a ‘minimum viable’ approach to product and service development is encouraged – getting something out to the market fast then refining it, releasing updated versions with enhanced features.

Organisations typically choose to move to the cloud in the belief it will make them more agile, reduce IT costs and allow them to be more innovative and grow the business. In expert hands and when the transition takes place at the right time for the right workloads organisations can reap all these benefits and more. But all too often the objectives are unclear, the expected benefits are based on misconceptions and the overall cloud strategy is flawed.

 

Factors to consider

 

Before arriving at a decision, first consider:

  • Which applications are suited to run in a cloud environment?
  • Does it make financial sense? If an application involves a large number of expensive licences, it may be best suited to another platform. Similarly, if the application frequently interacts with the legacy estate and hyperscaler (AWS, Azure, Google), it may incur prohibitive data transfer charges, a point that is often overlooked.
  • Where will your data be stored and how secure will it be? This may well influence your choice of cloud vendor.
  • How will it integrate with your legacy systems?
  • What is your exit strategy? It is good practice to plan your way out of a vendor before you even move in to avoid onerous lock-in clauses.
  • What application interdependencies do you have? Lack of interoperability will inevitably hamper success.
  • Sometimes the cutting edge can feel very sharp and moving to DevOps can hurt both your operations teams and your developers as they strive for change. Factor in what works for your culture and the speed at which your organisation can operate.
  • How critical is the application to your business and what regulatory and compliance standards must it meet?
  • At what lifecycle stage is the application? In the start-up phase, an application might be expected to grow very quickly, in which case a cloud environment will provide much-needed scalability. Conversely, it may not be economically viable to move a stable, long-established application in steady-state operation to the cloud. And if an application is in decline, the best route may be to manage it out and replace it.
  • Is the skillset still available to support the application? While millennials now entering the workforce are educated on newer technologies and techniques, those typically managing and updating legacy environments are retiring — and taking their specialist skills with them.

 

Top tips for cloud success

 

Our cloud and IT transformation consultants have extensive experience gained from guiding customers through large multi-cloud engagements over the years and here we share some top tips to avoid common pitfalls:

  1. Switch from ‘inside out’ to ‘outside in’ thinking. In other words, look at things from an end user’s perspective when planning – ask yourself how will people consume the service and what experience do you want them to have? It is unlikely that a single cloud will be suitable for all your applications so build a layered cloud strategy for each of the capabilities. Where possible, avoid a straight ‘lift and shift’ of the physical data centre into a cloud environment and instead take the opportunity to redesign business processes and redeploy to gain the full benefit from your cloud transformation.
  1. Break down your transformation programme into manageable chunks. Rather than carry out a sweeping enterprise cloud migration, focus on one workload at a time to reduce the gap between the discovery phase and execution or your discovery may become out-of-date. Start small!
  1. Focus on business outcomes. Prioritise workloads according to whether they will add value to the business and create agility where this is needed.
  1. Set meaningful success criteria. As with any business decision, whether to move applications to the cloud should be based on the anticipated business benefits, not the technical achievements that make this happen. (Just because something can be done doesn’t mean it should be done).

 

Sungard Availability Services provides an end-to-end modular cloud migration service that helps reduce risk and complexity. As part of this process we help customers map the world around them and identify their needs.

If you’d like to explore whether a cloud environment is right for your organisation, contact our expert cloud consulting team on 0800 143 413 or email avail@sungardas.com

 

About the author

shabansaddique_resizedShaban Saddique is an experienced Head of Consultancy, who creates clarity, builds unity and fosters agility.  His service delivery leadership experience includes strategy, cost analysis, cloud and hosting solutions, data centre and IT infrastructure.  Shaban has managed multiple Hybrid IT strategy and cloud/data centre transformation projects across multiple industry verticals.  He has helped clients to drive IT transformation by building appropriate end-to-end cloud delivery models, while ensuring both business value and technology alignment.

 

 

 

 

 

 

[1] Source: Gartner Symposium ITXPO

[2] Source: IDC FutureScape: Worldwide IT Industry 2017 Predictions (IDC #USA41895616, November 2016)

New Customer Advisory Board Chair Appointed

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Lee Webb, Director, Group Resilience for Barclays, has been appointed to chair Sungard Availability Services’ European Customer Advisory Board (CAB). The CAB represents the customer viewpoint on policies and procedures, and influences the quality and direction of services to ensure they continue to meet customer needs. The CAB’s input is greatly valued by Sungard AS, with members consulted on proposed changes and among the first to hear of company developments.

Lee WebbBefore joining Barclays in 2005, Lee worked for a number of organisations in both the public and private sector. These ranged from small independent operations to large multinational corporations.  Lee spent six years in Hong Kong as a Director at Credit Suisse, during which time he was responsible for the rollout of the Asia Pacific segment of a global Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery remediation programme.  Prior to moving into the business continuity field, Lee worked as a systems auditor and IT security consultant.

AVAIL got in touch with Lee to congratulate him on becoming Chair and to ask about his motivation for getting involved. “Having been a member of the CAB for a couple of years now and seen it in action, I believe it is a valuable two-way channel that allows customers to give open and honest feedback to Sungard AS,” he replied. “Equally, it gives us as customers an insight into the challenges facing Sungard AS and how the company plans to address them.” 

We asked him about his plans for the European CAB, to which he replied, “While there are eight companies represented around the table, I want to raise awareness of the CAB and widen participation. Success comes from having a representative cross-section of customers on the board and for all those members to actively contribute. I’d also like to take the pulse of views out there to ensure the CAB is in sync with the wider customer base as it is so diverse.”

Among the initiatives Lee is currently working on at Barclays are innovations in crisis management, and looking at how intelligence techniques such as ‘near miss’ analysis can be harnessed and used proactively to improve the recovery response. He says, “I’m borrowing heavily from industries like oil, gas and aviation to see what we can learn from those sectors and identify any underlying trends that might have a universal application. The findings may be something all Sungard AS customers could benefit from – so watch this space.”

We look forward to catching up with Lee in a future edition of AVAIL and hearing more about his plans for the CAB.

The next CAB meeting is on Wednesday 8 November. If you have an issue or query you’d like the board to address, simply email the CAB before that date.

Managing Risk and Mastering Change with IT Consulting

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As Senior Vice President of Consulting, Mike Threlfall talks about the role consultants can play in reducing risks and taking on the forces of change.

 

Q: What IT trends make consulting services more important than ever to customers now?

Mike: With recent security incidents, customers are now more focused on building an appropriate response to cyber risks, and we’re seeing that across the world. Another trend driving the need for consulting is digital transformation, where organisations are trying to respond to the increasing digitization of the global business landscape.

In both cases, they’re looking for insight into how other companies approached similar situations—what worked badly, what worked well—to help them decide the best course of action. Quite often, they don’t have that type of experience inhouse, so that’s why the injection of outside consulting services is important.

We provide advisory services around business resilience and continuity, risk management and infrastructure transformation. To help customers formulate an appropriate response if a security incident occurs, we assess their overall infrastructure and security processes from top to bottom, then run crisis simulations, coaching individual executives and teams about how to respond effectively, while maintaining a programme of ongoing vigilance.

When it comes to digital transformation, we assist customers in figuring out how to adapt their infrastructure technology and IT services to effectively support and enable the required change. We can also go on to develop, manage and implement an IT transformation programme to enable digital business services.

 

Q: Where are most companies in the digital transformation process?

Mike: In some industries, such as banking, retail and telecom, the more traditional Internet and mobile-based digital channels and their breadth through the value chain is relatively mature. In other sectors, such as manufacturing, transportation and logistics and construction, digital uptake is much lower.

For public sector, digital government services are leading the way. But, without doubt, the long period of austerity has held back developments. The paradox here is that digital transformation is a survival imperative for both local government services and the NHS in their current form. An aging and growing population and continued austerity require solutions to drive lower costs, while retaining citizen intimacy. However, it remains to be seen if investments and funding models will appear in the near term to enable the necessary large-scale changes required.

The next waves of the Internet of Things (IoT), machine learning and artificial intelligence (AI) with business analytic integration across the piece, are well underway. The enhanced relevance of these technological advances across industrial, construction, manufacturing, transportation and logistics and healthcare sectors, as well as their relevance to more mainstream digital protagonists, is undoubtedly fueling a massive drive for digital transformation.

The plethora of newly established positions, such as digital directors, heads of digital and other associated roles are evidence that, whilst this wave is still immature, traction is rapidly growing; with ecosystems of partners evolving driving proof of concept developments running alongside more traditional and business as usual technical environments.

So, digital maturity levels vary significantly across sectors and individual companies, but the rate of change and digital transformation across all sectors is ramping up massively. The difference is really just a matter of their starting point and target business outcomes. However, the magnitude and speed of digital transformation is also heavily intertwined with factors, such as investment appetite and economic uncertainty.

 

Q: How are other market forces creating a greater need for consulting services?

Mike: The wider acceptance of hyperscale cloud and the next waves of digital transformation incorporating IoT, machine learning, AI and associated business analytics are all increasing the demand for consulting engagements. Customers want to exploit the scope, price and competitiveness of hyperscale platforms, but need help figuring out which workloads and services to deploy in that environment.

They also want to understand and exploit the business benefits from the latest developments in digital technologies, but, again, they need assistance in defining business outcomes and developing the infrastructure and services to enable their digital services, including where hyperscale cloud plays within this context.

We have a modular set of transformation services that start with defining a cloud strategy, then surveying and documenting the application landscape to discover the business-critical characteristics of those applications, as well as their infrastructure dependencies, level of maturity, architectural, technical and commercial readiness.

Next, we map those applications and business services to the appropriate platforms. They can be hyperscale in the cloud or run in different types of hosted or physical environments, depending on the needs of a particular business service or application. We really don’t find any customers who have a requirement that fits entirely into any one of those platforms because we’re dealing with hybrid infrastructures today that have to run in harmony. We can then implement the infrastructure changes for them, assessing and remediating any availability and security risks as we do so.

 

Q: How do you help customers manage the challenges of IoT?

Mike: The number and hyper-connectivity of devices, including sensors and edge devices sitting alongside more traditional technology forms, is set to explode. This is creating an unprecedented amount of data that customers need to capture, transmit, store, secure, backup and recover. They also need to analyse it to turn the data into useful information, then deliver it to those in the organisations who need it to do things differently, better, faster and cheaper.

We’re working with one aviation customer who is aiming to automate resource scheduling, such as those required for refueling, based on real-time information about when planes land. So, they are stitching a lot of different pieces of data together from many different sources, including sensors, to make smarter decisions and increase efficiency.

That style of real-time access is being considered for all areas of commerce now, which is driving the need for specific consulting around infrastructure architectures to support IoT and business analysis platforms, data storage, backup, recovery and data security.

As smart devices collect large volumes of different data types and connect back into corporate resources and networks, they create the need for architectures and integration to support “real time” data transmission and access performance requirements, along with appropriate storage, backup and recovery solutions for large data files, such as images and videos, as well as small log file type data.

Invariably the ecosystem to support such services expands, requiring the appropriate service integration of providers to assure service quality. Further, with lots of extra entry points where threats can get in, companies need to determine how IoT affects their risk and security stance and what they can do to minimise additional exposures. Sungard AS consultants can help our clients assess their current environment and readiness and create appropriate strategies. They can assist customers in realising those strategies to cover all these areas in terms of people, process and technology.

 

Q: What makes Sungard AS different in the consulting area?

Mike: First of all, when it comes to technology, we are impartial. If you went to another vendor, you could be pushed to a specific technology, platform or partner solution—whether overtly or not. Customers also get to work with seasoned experts, with a deep competency in the areas of business resilience and continuity, risk, infrastructure transformation and security.

We also have proven methodologies in areas of business resilience, continuity and risk, and responsibility for success pervades the whole organisation. With that in mind, we take a holistic approach, often starting with the most senior customer executives. With our heritage in protective services, we speak the language of both business and IT and can act as an effective integrator of the two.

Within the context of infrastructure transformation, we have a proven modular methodology, flexible enough to accommodate an agile approach and minimum viable solution concepts to deliver benefits more rapidly. As you can also imagine, our protective services heritage and proven and risk-managed migration methodology gives clients confidence as we migrate them from their current to their target mode of operation.

Within our cloud and infrastructure practice, we also address the growing skills gap in delivering and supporting digital developments. We offer residency services to augment our clients’ internal staffs, so that they can move forward with digital – enabling infrastructure transformation. We also offer post-implementation residency for knowledge transfer about their new infrastructure and IT services.

And finally, we’ve got a very solid track record, backed by an impressive set of customer references.

 

Q: Is there anything on the horizon that’s going to make it even more imperative to engage a consultant?

Mike: Concerns around the security of internet-facing services, and the increasing interconnection of services, will still be a challenge. As more IT services are connected between companies, it will change the way your organisation needs to think about your IT, because it’s no longer your IT, it’s in a much wider world.

So, the old-fashioned notion of building a fortress IT shop went away a while ago, but I think there are still plenty of organisations that haven’t really figured out how that impacts them.

Compliance regulations will also influence how organisations handle, protect and profit from data, and I don’t think many appreciate just how intrusive those regulations are likely to be. For example, although the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is a European law, it applies worldwide wherever your company is based. Regulators are operating behind the curve, given the pace of technology innovation that we are currently experiencing. I expect to see a raft of new regulatory requirements appear, both broadly and within sectors over the medium term, some of which are likely to have quite profound implications.

When it comes to the digital technology revolution, there are no signs of slowing pace. Current waves will mature and newer ones, such as those in the areas of robotics and digital currency, will start to mature and emerge.

So, in the future, I think there will continue to be technologically driven change and new risks and regulations for customers to deal with, but there will also continue to be tremendous opportunities.

 

Find out more about how Sungard AS IT Consulting Services can help your organisation.

To help strengthen your security stance, check out our free Risk and Resilience in 2017 webinar.

Shedding tears over WannaCry

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Michael_Smith_online 150By Michael Smith CEH, SSCP, CISSP 

As I am sure you will be aware, on 12 May, organisations worldwide were hit by the WannaCry cyberattack, which crippled over 200,000 computers in more than 150 countries worldwide. At the time of going to press, the repercussions are still being felt. The global attack involves ransomware being installed on machines and encrypting them, with an average payment of around $675 in bitcoin demanded to decrypt the files[1].

 

E-mail is the number one delivery vehicle for ransomware, accounting for 31% of attacks[2]

Highlighting the importance of security awareness training for employees, machines became infected after a computer on a network opened an infected attachment contained in a ‘phishing’ e-mail. This contained a worm that proceeded to encrypt the machine, as well as infecting other machines on the network. The encryption occurred too fast for security software to catch it in many cases. The attack caught many off guard, and highlighted the flaws in several enterprises’ technology estates.

The WannaCry worm, created using stolen National Security Agency (NSA) cyber-offensive tools, exploited a fault in Windows Operating Systems between Windows XP and all Windows Operating Systems up to, but not including Windows 10. Although the fault was known to Microsoft, and a patch issued, many had not installed the patch.

Victims included the UK’s National Health Service, Russia’s Ministry of Interior, China government agencies, the Deutsche Bahn railway company, car manufacturers Nissan Motor Co. and Renault, PetroChina, logistics giant FedEx and other company and hospital computer systems in countries from Eastern Europe to the US and Asia. Russia and Ukraine appear to have had the heaviest concentration of infections.

The attack was finally halted in the UK when a 22-year-old cybersecurity researcher took control of an Internet domain that appears to have acted as a kill switch for the worm’s propagation. But there are concerns that the code will simply be rewritten, removing this initial flaw.

Why did this occur?

As explained in an AVAIL article last autumn, ransomware is big business, with payouts costing organisations over $1bn in 2016[3] – a figure that is sure to rise this year with the impact of WannaCry. However, the attack was able to spread so quickly because many enterprises had not patched or upgraded their systems and lacked effective cyber defence capabilities.

Microsoft had released a patch in early 2017 to address the Windows loophole the NSA discovered, but many organisations had not installed it. This is not uncommon and is usually due to the cost and complexity of upgrading or, in some cases, ignorance of the risks involved in not staying up-to-date with patches. The public sector is particularly vulnerable in this regard due to the sheer size of their IT estates and underinvestment in many cases.

In Britain, the NHS was particularly badly hit because it faces a constant funding conflict between allocating scarce resources to patient care and spending on IT systems.  Consequently, many hospitals have been using a version of Windows that is no longer supported by Microsoft, leaving them wide open to attack.

Many Sungard AS Managed Services clients subscribe to our patch management service and we advise them which upgrades they should install but for those customers who contract only colocation services this is their responsibility alone. (Sungard AS would never make any changes to a customer’s equipment – such as installing patches – without an express instruction to do so as while this could fix one problem, it could cause a host of others).

In some cases, a Disaster Recovery solution could potentially offer a means to mitigate the impact of ransomware attacks – in the event of an attack, one could simply restore a ‘clean’ version from backup. But that is more complex than it sounds. It is possible that malware could have been in the system for some time, dormant before an activation signal. In those cases, it would make restoring very difficult as the malicious software could be present in backups.

Added to this, any backup and recovery solution is just one piece of the puzzle, together with risk mitigation and resilience planning as part of a wider cybersecurity solution.

Danger has not passed

WannaCry appears to have been halted, almost by accident. But there are likely to be other, more sophisticated ransomware attacks. We have already seen the next global ransomware outbreak – known as NotPetya, Petrwap or a variant of Petya – spread rapidly across the UK, Europe, Russia and India and it seems unlikely that will be the end of it. The danger has not passed.

This suggests that ransomware protection and other types of cyber security will become a greater concern for many C-Level executives, at least in the short term (although the cyberthreat will never go away).

What you can do about the ransomware threat

With any kind of cyberattack, cybercriminals will typically go for the easiest targets first so efforts should focus on prevention. Possibly the most important advice I can give is to implement a Defence in Depth approach to security in which you don’t place your faith in any single technique or technology but put multiple layers of both proactive and reactive security controls in place to eliminate information security vulnerabilities.

So here are some proactive measures all organisations should follow to guard against attack:

The first line of defence against infection

  • Network edge (‘perimeter’) security to eliminate threats at the perimeter, the best location to eliminate the vast majority of attacks, with Managed Firewall Service, Managed Intrusion Prevention Services and Two Factor Authentication.
  • Operating system layer security such as Managed File Integrity Monitoring and Host-Based Intrusion Detection Services.
  • Update obsolete operating systems
  • Patch management services for infrastructure devices within the data centre. This includes devices under Sungard AS management such as servers, network devices, security devices and some applications.
  • Conduct Information Security Assessments, Vulnerability Assessments and regular penetration testing to assess the effectiveness of your defences.
  • Adopt a virtual desktop environment for remote devices
  • Implement specialist email filtering services to clean out malicious attachments and URLs
  • Block users from installing unauthorised applications and ensure applications are managed centrally
  • Disable macro scripts from office files transmitted over email
  • Implement proxy internet access, mail relays and mail scrubbing to form a barrier between an internal network and the open internet. Proxy servers intercept requests for internet pages from users within the network and perform various chores to protect the network, improving performance and enforcing company web use policies.
  • Segregate networks through the use of a Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that separates your internal local area network (LAN) from other untrusted networks, usually the internet. External-facing servers, resources and services are located in the DMZ so they are accessible from the internet but the rest of the internal LAN remains unreachable. This provides an additional layer of security to the LAN as it restricts the ability of hackers to directly access internal servers and data via the Internet.
  • Application layer security – Install robust firewalls including Web Application Firewalls and monitor these to ensure they stay current and able to withstand the latest threats
  • Backup regularly and verify the integrity of those backups. Ensure they are not connected to the computers and networks they are backing up. Ideally, data should be held securely in a resilient, geographically separate location.

The second line of defence – detecting infection

  • On an ongoing basis through Managed File Integrity Monitoring Services, SIEM, Managed Intrusion Detection Systems and Incident Response Services.

Third line – mitigate losses

  • Managed Backup and Recovery Services – Crisis-driven decisions worsen the impact so prepare for a potential incident in advance and put plans to the test. Remember to think beyond technology and address the people and process aspects of your plan. For example:
  • Specify who is responsible for each step of the response, whether it’s someone in-house or a third party.
  • If your business involves e-commerce, have a ‘Plan B’ in place to keep orders flowing.
  • Plan your communication strategy – who needs to be notified and when.

While we have focused on technical security measures above, don’t forget to educate your people who will otherwise become the weak links in the chain:

  • Draw up an Information Security Policy and ensure it is rigorously adhered to
  • Create an education programme for users explaining the risks posed by inadequate defences, the threats faced by organisations and their responsibility to prevent breaches
  • Insist on strong password controls for users but, importantly, for System Admin too. No users should be assigned administrative access unless absolutely necessary and, for this reason, do not use the same Admin passwords on servers as for users, a common mistake. Escalation of privileges is one of the first steps to compromise a network so strictly limit access.
  • Adhere to basic security doctrines such as allowing users to see only the information necessary to do their jobs.

If this sounds like a daunting To Do list, remember Sungard Availability Services’ cybersecurity and resilience experts can help. To find out more, call us on 0800 143 413 or email avail@sungardas.com.

 

About the author

Michael_Smith_online 500Mike Smith has spent over 30 years in IT, 24 of which have been spent with Sungard Availability Services.  During this time, he has provided hands-on communications support; post and pre-sales support for both systems and communications and has been manager of both pre-sales support, technical support groups and worked extensively as a Senior Product Development Manager.

He is currently a Solutions Architect specialising in Security Services for Sungard AS. This position involves matching customer requirements to solution sets or product offerings with the emphasis on getting the balance right between cost and functionality and selecting the right suppliers.

 

 

 

[1]http://www.symantec.com/content/en/us/enterprise/media/security_response/whitepapers/ISTR2016_Ransomware_and_Businesses.pdf

[2] Osterman Research

[3] https://www.infosecurity-magazine.com/news/ransomware-cost-businesses-1bn-in/

[4] https://www.trendmicro.com/vinfo/us/security/news/cybercrime-and-digital-threats/by-the-numbers-ransomware-rising

Latest Webinars: ‘Combat Cyber Crime’ and ‘Risk & Resilience’

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Webinars provide a wealth of information. Don’t miss out on the valuable, free resource that are Sungard Availability Services webinars!

Here are two new webinars currently available on demand.

 

Top building blocks to combat cyber crime

The highly informative ‘Top building blocks to combat cyber crime’ is presented by Sungard AS solutions architect Michael Smith in conjunction with Richard Cassidy, UK cyber security evangelist at Sungard AS partner Alert Logic.

Combat Cyber Crime webinar snippetWatch the webinar

 

Risk & Resilience in 2017

In ‘Risk & Resilience in 2017’, Chris Butler, principal cyber & information security consultant for Sungard AS, looks specifically at the current risks to businesses, the threat landscape and the importance of resilience. He explains how cyber resilience is more than just cyber security and explores what companies need to do to become and stay resilient.

Risk and Resilience webinar snippetWatch the webinar

 

New webinars will continue to be added throughout the year so visit the Sungard AS webinar page regularly to keep yourself up-to-date on today’s burning issues.

Little Book of IT paints challenging picture of CIO life

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The research and benchmarking contained in our Little Book of IT provides both solace and insight into our IT profession. The solace is that you are not alone in the fight to create an effective, efficient and ever-transforming IT estate. And the insight is in showing the nuances of IT strategies, and how your peers and competitors face their obstacles and challenges.

Some readers will find that the research results offer validation that their IT strategy is on the right path. Others will gain insights about emerging issues that aren’t yet on their radar. This study is designed to prompt internal debate and inspire examination of the ways in which IT services can be delivered. How does your organisation compare to the research findings? What is the balance of budget and staffing investments in innovation versus legacy infrastructure? Is your IT function on a different path than the majority of the market — and if so, can you justify that path given the uniqueness of your business model?

It’s important to ask the right questions within your organisation. With data from this survey providing a baseline understanding of what your peers and competitors are doing across many aspects of IT, the Little Book of IT may help you gain insights that support a stronger foundation for decisions. The results highlighted in this global survey include insights in the coming year into how decision-makers invest and innovate, where they allocate IT budget and staffing resources, and which technologies they adopt, as well as their organisational priorities and business drivers.

Modernisation headaches

One of the key findings speaks to a constantly discussed challenge: the pain of transformation and modernisation headaches. In this age of IT disruption — where digital technologies are transforming how, where and when business gets done — the speed at which we can embrace those technologies determines our ability to compete. Today, remaining relevant means picking up the pace of technology adoption and transformation.

The results tell of significant pressures — and great opportunities. New business models are driving requirements, while IT leaders leverage new approaches to IT service delivery and renovate legacy systems to prepare for the challenge at hand. The IT function is looking to build expertise in areas such as security, cloud and mobility, yet it’s never been more vital to maintain a sharp focus on the everyday operations that define the traditional role of IT.

61% of respondents believe that current strategies to manage modernisation requirements are limiting efforts elsewhere in innovation. The transformation challenge is top of mind. Maybe it’s time to re-think or question the markets’ solutions. This requires a high degree of fluidity, which is not a word often associated with traditional IT environments. Designed for stability and longevity, rather than agility, IT is the workhorse of the organisation. To enable innovation and speed, organisations look to more flexible IT infrastructures, like those found in the cloud.

Bimodal IT a potential solution

One approach, often referred to as ‘bimodal’, delivers a predictable platform for the applications and workloads that exist today (Mode 1), as well as a platform for exploring and experimenting with new agile technologies and ways of working (Mode 2). That can include leveraging anything from the Internet of Things (IoT), artificial intelligence (AI) and machine learning, to big data analytics with real-time results and the immersive experiences of virtual reality.

Although this study reveals a funding conflict, with the majority of organisations surveyed reporting they lack the funds to invest in innovative technologies, funding is not the only challenge. The data has shown that managing both traditional and newer, more agile environments at the same time poses a huge resourcing issue, especially for legacy IT environments.

These are just some of the insights found in the Little Book of IT. Register to receive your copy to find out more about how executive peers are tackling the big issues of the day and ensuring their organisations remain relevant in the future. And if you’d like to see how you compare to your peers, complete the short benchmarking survey here.

 

 

Case study: Sungard AS cloud gives students new horizons

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Hibernia College logo_online 500Hibernia College is an internationally accredited, global provider of high quality education programmes and is recognised as a world leader in teacher training. Its success is based on a blended learning format that combines interactive, multimedia-rich online content with periodic face-to-face tuition.

As the College has grown, it recognised it needed more than a reliable hosting provider but an expert technology partner with a robust, resilient infrastructure, global reach and the proven capability to provide support around-the-clock. Aware of its reputation in the industry, Hibernia College put Sungard AS at the top of its list when evaluating potential partners.

As Rob O’Neill, Director of IT at Hibernia College points out, “We are not data centre experts so I had to make sure we had people who know what they are doing looking after our infrastructure and, in the event of something going wrong, had a plan in place to deal with that.”

The College relies on managed multi-tenanted cloud services from Sungard Availability Services to ensure its critical online learning environment is available 24/7, giving students access to their learning materials, enabling them to upload their assignments and interact with fellow students on discussion forums. “It was important that we didn’t give them a platform that was flaky in any way, limiting their access. We wanted to work with a world leader in data centre hosting and Sungard AS met those requirements,” says Rob O’Neill.

He adds, “One of the things I was really impressed by was their policy and procedures regarding security and access. We laid out what our requirements were – we needed robustness, resilience, security and capacity – and they guided us to the best solution.”

The managed cloud service provided by Sungard AS gives Hibernia College the reassurance of 99.95% availability, backed by an enterprise-grade service level agreement. “The internet is effectively our college campus so any downtime is equivalent to slamming the gates on our students,” Rob O’Neill explains. “So far, since 2012, we have had zero unplanned downtime, which is great for me and fantastic for our students.”

The College experiences distinct peak periods with intense demand when students upload assignments and daily lesson plans. Rob O’Neill says, “The guaranteed bandwidth provided by Sungard AS’ managed cloud service is essential to cope with bursts in demand. Scalability is also a key factor for us. We have certain peak times, particularly around assignments. We don’t have to build a massive infrastructure for the peaks but can build it for the norm and flex out for the peaks as required.”

Hibernia College effectively subscribes to the compute power and storage it needs today in the knowledge that Sungard AS’ vast resource pool will give it the flexibility it needs in the future.

Watch the video here

To read the full case study, click here

Keith’s Foreword: Summer brings sunshine and clouds

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Welcome to the Summer edition of AVAIL. We caught up with Sungard AS’ Senior Vice President of Consulting Mike Threlfall who explains how IT consulting can help organisations manage risk and master change. Among the many fascinating points he makes, perhaps the most powerful is his observation that as more IT services are connected between companies, organisations need to change the way they think about their IT, because it’s no longer their IT but part of a much wider world.

Indeed, this is one of the issues highlighted in our Little Book of IT, which sheds light on the many challenges and opportunities that face IT decision-makers today. If you haven’t registered to receive your own copy yet, this is a chance to see what your peers and competitors are doing across many aspects of IT and see how you compare.

As the recent global WannaCry attack forcefully demonstrated, the cybercrime market is also developing rapidly. Read our article on the steps you should be taking to give yourself a fighting chance against attack. And if you’d like to know more about ransomware, why not watch our ‘Top building blocks to combat cybercrime’ webinar?

The next big deadline on virtually all organisations’ calendars should be 25 May 2018 – the immovable date when the General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) will be enforced. You’ve probably heard a lot about this already but research suggests that close to 40% of businesses have not started their preparations yet. If yours is among them, beware – the clock is ticking!

As testament to our recovery capabilities, Sungard AS has been positioned in the ‘Leaders’ quadrant of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for the third year in a row. This after being named as one of the ten most significant Disaster Recovery as a Service providers in the authoritative Forrester WaveTM report.

While on the subject of recovery, we don’t believe in making unsubstantiated claims so arranged independent validation of our test statistics by the Disaster Recovery Institute International. These confirmed that our recovery rate is indisputably 2.5 times better than the market average. Read the full story here.

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

Keith Tilley

Executive Vice President and Vice-Chair, Sungard Availability Services

Get set for GDPR

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By Rogelio Aguilar – Senior Consultant, Cyber Resilience, Security & Privacy – Sungard Availability Services

Rogelio photo_croppedLast issue, we talked about what the new General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) means for business. With the directive coming into force on 25 May next year, organisations need to prepare now if they are not to be in breach of the regulations. In just nine months, a two-tier sanctions regime will be enforced with breaches of the law leading to hefty fines of up to €20 million (or 4% of global annual turnover) being levied by data watchdogs. But to focus on potential fines is to miss the point: what is more important is that implementation of the GDPR will give compliant businesses a real competitive advantage.

Research suggests up to 61% of businesses have yet to wake up to the reality that Brexit or not, GDPR requirements are not going to go away[1]. The clock is ticking for organisations to act on what Information Commissioner Elizabeth Denham describes as “the biggest change in data protection law for a generation.”

She says, “If your organisation can’t demonstrate that good data protection is a cornerstone of your business policy and practices, you’re leaving your organisation open to enforcement action that can damage both public reputation and bank balance. But there’s a carrot here as well as a stick: get data protection right, and you can see a real business benefit.”

The Information Commissioner’s Office (ICO) is the UK’s independent body set up to uphold information rights. Its work is to ensure data protection law is respected and while they will impose fines to achieve that goal, it is not their purpose. The big question is how your organisation would measure up if the ICO was to conduct an audit or advisory visit. This is what the ICO is looking to see when they visit:

  • Senior management has taken ownership of Data Protection
  • There is a GDPR programme in place that has the necessary resources and involves all relevant stakeholders
  • A Data Protection Officer (DPO) has been appointed in those cases where it is mandatory and that this individual has access to senior management and can work without pressure being brought to bear
  • A Privacy Impact Assessment has been conducted
  • Areas of compliance have been documented
  • Areas that require further work have been identified and there is a plan in place to tackle them
  • There should be a plan to deal with a data breach when (not if) it occurs that includes:
  • A procedure to notify the ICO within 72 hours of identifying the breach
  • A process to decide whether data subjects must be notified and a mechanism to do so
  • Senior management being prepared to deal with the crisis that would arise

Sungard Availability Services can support you on your GDPR journey. Our consultants can help you establish a GDPR compliance programme, develop the business case and draw up a plan of action to gain competitive advantage by achieving cyber resiliency and regulatory compliance. To find out more, speak to your account manager, call 0800 143 413 or email avail@sungardas.com

                                                                                             

Everything you wanted to know about GDPR but were afraid to ask

If you’d like to be prepared for GDPR, you can find out everything you need to know at a Sungard AS GDPR masterclass. GDPR masterclasses are delivered by experienced practitioners at the top of their game who offer unique insights based on real-world experience across a range of industries. All our speakers have been selected because they challenge conventional thinking and cut through the waffle to give practical insights that can deliver a real business advantage.

During the one-day workshop, periods of round-table learning are reinforced by short, sharp, practical exercises designed to reinforce the learning experience through memorable, relevant and up-to-date examples. Topics covered include:

  • The foundations of modern privacy law and the essential elements of GDPR
  • What is a Privacy Impact Assessment?
  • Personal data and consent: the pathways to lawful business
  • The rights of the data subject
  • Monitoring and profiling: the impact on businesses, IT and social media
  • Data Controller and Data Processor: their relationship and obligations
  • Exemptions and opt-outs
  • The Data Protection Officer: responsibilities, authority and accountability
  • International transfers, adequacy regimes, contractual mechanisms and Brexit
  • Key business issues: outsourcing, the Internet of Things, Big Data and the Regulator

Following the GDPR masterclass you will have:

  • Increased awareness of GDPR requirements
  • Improved confidence in your own abilities to judge the relevance of the legislation to specific business processes
  • Greater understanding of appropriate behaviours on a Privacy by Default and a Privacy by Design organisation
  • Improved teamworking at strategic, tactical and operational levels as you gear up for GDPR
  • A practical understanding of the requirements, role and responsibilities of a Data Protection Officer

To find out more or arrange a masterclass for your C-suite, call 0800 143 413 or email avail@sungardas.com.

 

 

[1] https://iapp.org/news/a/survey-61-percent-of-companies-have-not-started-gdpr-implementation/

 

Gartner positions Sungard AS in Leader quadrant for third year running

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We’re pleased to say we’ve been positioned by Gartner in the ‘Leaders’ quadrant of its Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service for the third year in a row.

Gartner evaluated 24 Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) providers for this year’s Magic Quadrant. Service providers were evaluated against their ‘ability to execute’ – to provide a DRaaS offering that meets customer requirements with a high level of service and customer support – and a ‘completeness of vision’ – the ability to understand customer needs and translate them into products and services that shape or enhance the market.

According to Gartner, the firms in the Leaders quadrant of the DRaaS Magic Quadrant have “large, mature DRaaS practices. These players have significant industry experience, global capabilities, a focus on DRaaS as a standalone offering, and industry-leading vision with respect to meeting the needs of its intended target customer segments.”

With nearly four decades’ experience in delivering recovery solutions that apply to all facets of customers’ production environments, Sungard AS understands that IT must deliver business results. Looking beyond just protecting data, Sungard AS’ DRaaS solutions deliver a holistic approach to business resiliency. Our comprehensive DRaaS solutions are designed to be flexible enough to work with complex, bi-modal production and recovery environments, scaling up and down according to specific business requirements, and meeting a full range of recovery time and recovery point objectives (RTOs/RPOs). Sungard AS’ DRaaS solutions can be integrated with the full range of Sungard AS disaster recovery and business continuity services, including Managed Recovery services.

“With the increasing digitisation of key business functions, there is more at stake than ever before for organisations, which can no longer afford to rely on cheap or simple disaster recovery,” said Josh Crowe, Chief Technology Officer for Sungard AS. “Today’s business threats demand a more holistic and fluid business resiliency and recovery approach that evolve with an organisation. We designed our DRaaS offering to respond to our global customers’ needs, and we will continue to shape our DRaaS vision for future scenarios. We take great pride in being named by Gartner as a leader in Disaster Recovery as a Service for the third consecutive year and we will continue to identify and react to new market needs.” 

gartner-mq-draas-2017_online 500

Click here to view a copy of the 2017 Gartner, Inc., Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service

 

 

Gartner Disclaimer:
This graphic was published by Gartner, Inc. as part of a larger research document and should be evaluated in the context of the entire document. The Gartner document is available upon request from Sungard AS here.

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Sungard AS Recovery Management: more than twice as good as all the rest

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Independent validation of 87% recovery success rate.

As a Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant and Forrester WavesTM for Disaster Recovery as a Service, you would expect Sungard Availability Services to know a thing or two about getting companies back in business again after an interruption. And you would be right. But after almost 40 years of providing technology and workplace recovery services to customers worldwide, we decided to engage the Disaster Recovery Institute International (DRII) to provide independent scrutiny of our recovery success rates and set a benchmark for the rest of the industry to aspire to.

DRII evaluated Sungard AS’ Managed Recovery Program’s (MRP) statistical analysis of US-based customers who successfully tested their business continuity/disaster recovery plans under Managed Recovery contracts with Sungard AS between 1 January and 31 December 2016.

DRII’s approach and methodology are regimented and beyond reproach to ensure the accuracy and reliability of the findings. Accordingly, the assessment process conducted was extensive, both in depth and breadth. DRII had access to Sungard AS documentation, multiple customers who agreed to be interviewed directly by DRII and key personnel who performed the actual testing.

Taking the most conservative approach possible, results were measured binarily – either the full result was successfully attained or the results were scored as a total fail. ‘Success’ was defined as meeting all of the customer’s testing objectives, including meeting or bettering the Recovery Time Objective (RTO). By eliminating partial successes and failures, the most objective and accurate means of scoring was used.

At the end of the thorough validation process, DRII was able to verify that Sungard AS achieved an 87% customer testing success rate (excluding those whose tests failed solely due to customer issues) and a 78% testing success rate overall. This is two-and-a-half times better than the industry average, which according to the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council, is just 35%[1].

Recovery of complex IT is difficult: This would appear to be backed up by Gartner’s findings in its 2016 ‘Gartner Predicts’ report involving a survey of 854 organisations. Only 13 were able to achieve a reasonable level of recovery success while the vast majority of respondents were unable to meet their recovery objectives and ran into difficulties[2].

Daren Howell, Marketing Manager, who led the project noted that Al Berman, CEO of the DRII, commented that we had “scored ourselves conservatively, demonstrating great integrity.”

Keith Tilley, EVP and vice chair Sungard AS, paid tribute to Kaushik Ray and his recovery team who are delivering recovery service performance that is way above any of the industry benchmarks that we can find. Whether Forrester Waves or Gartner Magic Quadrants, you will find Sungard AS in a leadership position.

Sungard AS recognises that this assessment and others are only possible with the support of our customers who give up their time to complete research surveys and participate in interviews. This is very much appreciated.

 

 

[1] Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council Benchmark Report 2014

[2] https://www.gartner.com/doc/3514518/predicts–business-continuity-management

Forrester names Sungard AS in DRaaS top ten

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We are delighted to share the news that Forrester, a leading market research firm, has included Sungard Availability Services in its ten most significant Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) providers in its most recent Forrester WaveTM report[1].

 

Forrester Wave leader 2017 logoForrester identifies the ten most significant DRaaS providers based on 26 different criteria in three categories. The detailed report shows how each provider measures up against each of these measures and also where they stand in relation to one another. Thorough analysis showed that Sungard AS, along with three other providers from a shortlist of ten, “lead the pack”. We received the highest score for ‘Strategy’ and ‘Current offering’:

 

  • Current offering: Core DRaaS offerings, recovery objective capabilities, technology support, security, self-service and management interface, and consulting services
  • Strategy: Service strategy and corporate strategy
  • Market presence: Installed base, revenue, revenue growth, geographic scope, customer feedback, and technology partners

 

The report notes our “wide range of physical and virtual infrastructure and storage area network (SAN)-based replication”, as well as our “business continuity consulting team to help customers identify business processes and technology elements at risk and develop a risk mitigation strategy.” The report also cites our “continuity strategy and planning, risk assessment and business impact analysis (BIA) services”. It also commended our future strategy, which includes “enhanced automation and orchestration of application-level recovery.”

“In my view, this Forrester WaveTM report shows that we stand out for our large breadth of services not just in recovery, but also in consulting and additional services, such as Discovery and Dependency Mapping (DDM) and AssuranceCM, our suite of continuity management tools,” said Joseph George, vice president, product management at Sungard AS. “I believe that we also illustrated that we can recover to the application layer to complement the infrastructure OS and virtualisation-level cloud-based recovery capabilities, another differentiator.”

Forrester’s research is frequently used by infrastructure and operations professionals to help them select the right partner for their resiliency and recovery needs and is a further independent endorsement of our DRaaS strategy.

Download the full report here

forrester wave-2017-400

Forrester WaveTM: Disaster-Recovery-As-a-Service, Q2 2017
Source: Forrester (April 2017)

 

 

[1] Forrester WaveTM report published 20/4/17

News: Major Data Centre investments worldwide

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In line with our overall business strategy, Sungard Availability Services is investing in markets where we can deliver our range of broad, integrated solutions. That’s why in the past few years we have opened or expanded more than ten data centres serving the UK, Stockholm, Toronto, Philadelphia, New York, Denver and other key markets. As a result, we are delighted to announce that additional high quality data centre space is now available in both the UK and US.

 

Technology Centre 3 Expansion (Woking, UK)

The new area can accommodate around 180 cabinets with an average of 4KW per rack, although the environment can support up to 8KW. In common with all Sungard Availability Services facilities, the new area has the minimum N+1 standard for power and cooling and high security perimeter fencing. There is a 24/7/365 onsite security presence and, importantly, the CCTV system is compliant with the Police Scientific Development Branch’s (PSDB) Home Office standard, which means it has been built to a government-approved specification for crime reporting.

The additional space can support the full range of Sungard AS services including Cloud, Hosted Private Cloud, Colocation and Managed Services, and is now open and fully operational.

Download the data sheet here

 

New Data Centre in Silicon Valley

Opened on June 30th, our newest data centre in Santa Clara, CA combines the innovation you expect from Silicon Valley with the versatility of a cloud-centric infrastructure. The facility features, location characteristics, and environmental controls come together with expansive connectivity options to provide an ideal environment for your most critical workloads.

The data centre is strategically located near major fiber routes and multiple power grids, so you can connect quickly to the infrastructures you rely on, delivering the flexibility needed for today’s mixed environments. Production systems hosted at this facility can be readily integrated with our award-winning cloud recovery service, and fail-over to our Scottsdale facility can provide hiccup-free performance.

This Silicon Valley data centre can be an ideal foundation for hosted private cloud, where dedicated compute, storage and networking resources in an isolated environment can protect sensitive data and help meet regulatory compliance requirements. Dedicated resources combine with high-speed networking to accelerate performance. The flexibility to choose from partial to fully dedicated environments means you can select the degree of infrastructure isolation that aligns with your needs.

Flexibility. From partial to fully dedicated, our private cloud environment allows a customizable set of compute, storage and networking elements—so you have the freedom to choose the degree of infrastructure isolation that makes sense for your needs. A wide range of flexible managed services are also available to match your IT resource capabilities, allowing you to spend more time using the cloud than maintaining the cloud, and enabling you to focus on delivering innovation back to the business.

Find out more about the new Santa Clara data centre here

 

For further information on either data centre call 0800 143 413 or email avail@sungardas.com

Your gateway to Sungard AS applications and services

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Today, we are comfortable running numerous aspects of our lives online, from shopping and downloading music to booking holidays and banking because it enables us to do what we want, quickly and simply, at any time of the day or night. And, of course, we expect the same convenience in our working lives. With this in mind, Sungard Availability Services has introduced some changes to its Managed Services portal – ‘Viewpoint’ – that allows you to find all the information you need to manage your IT environment and action requests around the clock.

Viewpoint retrieves data from our numerous systems to provide you with a comprehensive view for monitoring and managing your environment. It puts you in control by giving you:

  • Efficient and self-explanatory means to check security clearance for granting access and the ability to both administer these where applicable and raise temporary access for your staff and trusted supplier network.
  • Simple and secure access to important data about your Sungard AS hosted and managed assets.
  • Deep analytic views of your monitored devices, including network, servers, and storage area
  • Real-time and historical event views for reviewing forensic data and analysing past activities.
  • Performance data views, including real-time and historical data.
  • Various reporting options for on-demand, or scheduled, delivery.

For instance, instead of raising a ticket or sending an email request for access, you can simply make requests yourself via the portal and receive an immediate system confirmation. However, as a safeguard and for your peace of mind, Secure Site Access in the UK incorporates a 24-hour time restriction to allow one of Sungard AS’ experts to review and veto a request if it will harm your environment.

In the event of emergency access (where less than 24 hours’ notice is given) these requests can still be arranged in the traditional way using the Global Service Desk or nominated Service Management Team.

Sungard AS customers in India, EMEA and the US can log in to Viewpoint via the Sungard AS website or access the portal directly here. (We suggest bookmarking it as a favourite)

We strive to ensure the portal is easy to use, whatever the device, so it is optimised for use on tablets, mobile-friendly and compatible with the latest browser releases. Currently, optimal browsers include:

  • Chrome™ in the Windows®, Macintosh®, and Linux environments
  • Mozilla Firefox® in the Windows®, Macintosh®, and Linux environments
  • Internet Explorer® 10 in the Windows® environment
  • Safari® in the Macintosh® environment

We anticipate the ability to request access to the major Sungard AS data centre sites globally and also to keep your Authorisation Matrix up-to-date – both tasks that can be performed quickly and easily through Viewpoint – will prove highly popular.

We will be running a series of easy-to-follow tutorials and quick guides to assist customers through the portal and the most commonly used tasks but are always on-hand to help. If you would like training in the use of Viewpoint or have any queries on performing a particular task, please contact the Service Desk on 0800 279 9166.

Channel awards recognise Sungard AS people and partnerships

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We were honoured to be recognised with two Dell EMC Global Alliances Awards in May: 2017 Dell EMC Global Alliances Marketing Partner of the Year and the Global Alliances Industry Partner of the Year. 

With more than 15 years of partnership between the two companies, we are able to offer a broad portfolio of services that bring enhanced value to our mutual customers. The awards, presented at the Dell EMC Global Partner Summit in Las Vegas, reflect the strength of our mutual commitment to the partnership.

The Global Alliances Marketing Partner of the Year Award honours Sungard AS for excellence in execution on unique, industry-oriented and integrated marketing and sales enablement campaigns with Dell EMC, while the Global Alliances Industry Partner of the Year recognises Sungard AS for significant achievements as a strategic Dell EMC partner.

Sungard AS Global Alliance Award Breakfast DEW Melissa“These honours underscore our dedication to providing customers with continuous access and protection for mission-critical data,” said Carmen Sorice, senior vice president, global channel sales & programs, Sungard AS. “Users expect access to information on any device, anytime and anywhere. Our goal in working with Dell EMC is to give customers the access to applications and data they need, while ensuring their data is protected at all times, wherever it resides.”

Sungard AS is a Titanium Solution Partner in the Dell EMC Velocity Service Provider Program. Our two companies collaborate to combine Sungard AS’ Managed Cloud Services, Managed Recovery Services, and Managed Services with Dell EMC Corporation’s cloud and infrastructure solutions. Together, Sungard AS and Dell provide a collection of third-party validated and industry-certified solutions to support customers’ IT environments. These are designed to ensure high availability, ease of management, and business continuity for mission-critical applications and business operations.

“We congratulate Sungard Availability Services on receiving Dell EMC’s Global Alliances Marketing Partner of the Year Award and Global Alliances Industry Partner of the Year Award, both of which recognise partners that have exhibited an exemplary commitment to Dell EMC, and have placed a true focus on bringing enhanced value to our mutual customers,” said Jay Snyder, senior vice president, global alliances, service providers and industries. “Alliance partners play a vital role in the Dell EMC Go to Market (GTM) and are critical in helping enable us to transform our customers on their digital transformation agenda.”

High calibre

In other channel news, CRN®, a brand of The Channel Company, named Melissa McCoy, Sungard Availability Services’ vice president of global channels and alliances, to its prestigious Power 100 list in its 2017 Women of the Channel awards. Seven other Sungard AS executives were also included in the annual Women of the Channel list, including:

  • Heidi Biggar, Director, Alliances Marketing
  • Jennifer Caria, Senior Director, Global Marketing
  • Karen Falcone, Principal Director, EMEA Channel Sales and Programs
  • Sarah Hamilton, Senior Director, Solutions & Alliances Marketing
  • Michelle LeVan, Vice President, Global Channel Strategy
  • Dena Marean, Director, Channel Development
  • Melany Zweifel, Channel Sales Director

The executives selected span the IT channel, representing vendors, distributors, solution providers and other organisations that figure prominently in the channel ecosystem. Each is recognised for her outstanding leadership, vision and unique role in driving channel growth and innovation.

Sungard AS Global Alliance Award Breakfast DEW Heidi“These awards recognise what we acknowledge every day at Sungard AS,” said Carmen Sorice, senior vice president, global channels, Sungard AS. “We employ some of the most dedicated, influential, and accomplished players in the channel, who are continually forging stronger partnerships and generating greater value for our partners and customers. It would be an honour to have a single team member included among the Women of the Channel, but to have eight confirms our depth of talent and their degree of accomplishment.”

CRN’s editorial team selects Women of the Channel recipients based on their professional accomplishments, demonstrated expertise and ongoing dedication to the channel. The Power 100 belong to an exclusive group drawn from this larger list: women leaders whose vision and influence are key drivers of their companies’ success and help move the entire IT channel forward. This is the third year in a row in which Melissa McCoy has been included.

“These extraordinary executives support every aspect of the channel ecosystem, from technical innovation to marketing to business development, working tirelessly to keep the channel moving into the future,” said Robert Faletra, CEO of The Channel Company. “They are creating and elevating channel partner programs, developing fresh go-to-market strategies, strengthening the channel’s network of partnerships and building creative new IT solutions, among many other contributions. We congratulate all the 2017 Women of the Channel on their stellar accomplishments and look forward to their future success.”

Keith’s Foreword: A time for plans and projects

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Welcome to Spring AVAIL.

As Tolstoy remarked in Anna Karenina, “Spring is the time of plans and projects” and that certainly seems to hold true for Sungard Availability Services and you, our customers.

In our first edition of AVAIL in 2017, we cover the imminent arrival of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) and the preparations we should all be making now in readiness.

Then there’s my article on the four most important projects CIOs need to tackle this year if they want their business to keep up with the rapidly shifting IT landscape.

We also discuss our pivotal study into the challenges currently exercising the IT industry and invite you to apply for a copy of the resultant Little Book of IT. We believe you’ll find it thought-provoking reading. While on the subject, I’d urge you to take a few minutes to complete our benchmarking survey and see how you compare to your peers.

We share the secret of our unparalleled recovery success rate – consistently above 90% – in a must-read article ’10 steps to a successful recovery’. This is the tried-and-tested process we follow ourselves with great results.

In other news, we talk about how apps are disrupting the status quo by enabling new players to take on the established ‘big beasts’ in several industry sectors. With apps now driving infrastructure, what does this mean for your business?

And, in the latest instalment of our Tame the Bear research, we look at the impact of cloud computing on the manufacturing, retail and public sectors.

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

Keith Tilley

Executive Vice President and Vice-Chair, Sungard Availability Services

From cost centre to profit centre: the changing role of IT and the CIO

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When Josh Crowe took his first job as a Chief Information Officer (CIO) 20 years ago, things were vastly different. Here, the Chief Technology Officer (CTO) of Sungard Availability Services (Sungard AS) leverages that experience to talk about the role of the CIO then and now and how we can ease the transition.

 

Q: Josh, how would you define the role of the CIO today and how has it changed over the last three to five years?

Josh: At one time, the CIO was more of a cost centre manager, responsible for leading information technology, application and even facilities teams as they supplied IT services to the internal users of an organisation. Most CIO roles today have some element of responsibility for the product and service areas of the business, particularly as businesses expand their offerings with digital delivery aspects.

In some cases, the CIO is now in charge of commercialising new digital offerings to compliment the brick-and-mortar business. In the past, the CIO may have been selected as a result of their cost management acumen, while today’s CIO must increasingly be a growth-minded innovation leader. The expectation of the CEO and the board is that CIOs are focused on leading the company through a digital transformation that will impact both internal and external customers.

 

Q: Beyond digital transformation, what other IT trends have made things easier or more difficult for the CIO?

Josh: While traditional technologies have become easier to manage, that doesn’t necessarily translate to a more stable, predictable role for the CIO. That’s largely for three reasons:

First, the volume of technologies being managed has risen dramatically. Second, the criticality of information technology to the business has increased exponentially, driving down tolerance for downtime, security-related risks and other issues. Finally, our expectations for the speed and quality of delivery continue to increase. The business simply expects secure applications, deployed rapidly and with 24/7 availability.

In particular, security risks and compliance requirements are more complex and real-time, making it a lot more challenging for a CIO to keep up with the security posture of the company. The sophistication, level of maturity and frequency of attacks increases so frequently, it can be very expensive for organisations to understand their risks, let alone manage them.

At the same time, as IT is enabling growth with new technologies, they still have to manage legacy environments. Many of their core systems today require a fair amount of governance, and a certain set of processes and skills that are significantly different than those needed for more innovative technologies.

So, CIOs must be able to balance time across competing requirements, with an increased emphasis on recruiting and retaining talent for the emerging technologies they may adopt now and in the future.

 

Q: What priorities do you think a CIO needs to focus on to meet those challenges?

Josh: First and foremost, they need to concentrate on the digital transformation of the company and how IT can support their strategy. At the same time, they need to manage the business risks of both their new initiatives and their existing applications and data, because the importance of their digital assets is increasing daily.

So, it’s critical to secure and protect those assets from both inside and outside threats, while maintaining the availability of their systems to keep the business running during times of increased workloads, changes in how the systems are used and in times of disaster.

 

Q: Where do you see the most opportunities emerging in the year ahead?

Josh: The increasing adoption of Infrastructure as a Service has really been a tipping point for increasing opportunities. The CIO now has the ability to create, shrink, expand and evolve their infrastructure capabilities with the call of an API.

That puts tremendous capabilities at IT’s fingertips. What may have taken a significant amount of money and time to build out a large, enterprise-grade application infrastructure, they can now do in minutes with a little bit of code.

For the CIO, that’s a very powerful capability and it changes how they think about and deploy their applications. But it also enables innovation, growth and experimentation. They can build, deploy and try out a new application, and, if it’s not working as expected, or it doesn’t generate the customer feedback they want, they can pull it back fairly quickly. It allows for more rapid application development and innovation.

There are lots of new technologies coming out that really make infrastructure and application deployment less of a headache for IT organisations, while opening up significant possibilities that make the world of the CIO even more exciting and relevant to the business.

For instance, there are new ways to move workloads between clouds and for migrating workloads to new platforms that are transforming disaster recovery, enabling customers to have a highly available environment with full visibility into their compliance and recoverability posture on very short notice.

The tools enabling rapid development and deployment of applications are getting better as well, allowing IT to start adopting some of the best practices, like continuous deployment, that previously saw limited adoption in the enterprise.

 

Q: How will Sungard AS play a role in helping customers take advantage of those opportunities?

Josh: As an infrastructure provider, Sungard AS has the capability to run the systems customers have today, as well as those they want to run newer applications.

For example, our Managed Cloud – Hosted Private offering, based on VMware, is capable of delivering the performance and availability our customers need for both their existing systems and the new systems they’re deploying. We now have our Managed Cloud – AWS service to manage hyper-scale cloud services with some of the best practices our customers are used to receiving from Sungard AS. These two platforms are the core infrastructure we’ll use to run our customers’ workloads in the coming years.

Looking forward, Sungard AS’s role isn’t just to run our customers’ production environments, or to ensure that environment is completely recoverable if disaster occurs. Increasingly, our customers want our help defining their infrastructure strategy and helping them move from their current state to a new, more modern set of infrastructure solutions. By helping them transition and managing that infrastructure for them on a go-forward basis, it enables CIOs to focus their time and energy on applications that differentiate their business and drive revenue.

Ground-breaking study shows IT is at a crossroads

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In the last edition of AVAIL we invited IT decision-makers to take the opportunity to share their views in a pivotal study showing how IT is evolving and comparing pain points and business visions across industries, regions and job levels. The resulting Little Book of IT, based on interviews with 1,350 IT decision-makers across the UK, US, Canada, India, Ireland, France and Sweden, gives an inside look at the challenges faced by IT leaders and shows where the IT industry is today.

It is clear we are at a tipping point and this is the time to learn the lessons of the past to avoid having to play ‘catch up’ again in a few years’ time. This means ensuring your IT environment remains fluid and agile, able to shift with the changing times and your changing business needs.

Because in this age of IT disruption where digital technologies are transforming how, when and where business gets done, the speed at which we can embrace those technologies determines our ability to compete. What came across loud and clear from the research is that in this new digital-focused corporate world, IT is indisputably the single most important part of the organisation, driving revenue, efficiencies and innovation. Consequently, the role of the IT decision-maker has never been more crucial.

However, too often your technology is just not up to the job you need it to do in order to achieve company objectives. Some refer to Digital Transformation as being a journey. But many of these journeys are being slowed by a failure to modernise quickly enough, having limited resources with the right skill sets, while being mindful of the ever-present resilience and security concerns.

The data has shown that managing both traditional and newer, more agile environments at the same time poses a huge resourcing issue, especially for legacy IT environments.

You told us that the frustrating experiences of dealing with inherited, inflexible, non-interoperable IT estates is frequently the cause of your biggest headaches. Whether you are new to dealing with these challenges or a veteran who has faced years of budget constraints and decaying legacy systems, you can be sure the need for fundamental change is something that is affecting your peers too.

And these are not the only difficulties. How do you reconcile the funding conflict between investing in innovative technologies that could really make a difference and simply ‘keeping the lights’ on? How are your competitors and peers tackling the thorny issue of Shadow IT?

Discover how you compare to your peers!

The Little Book of IT is just the start of a unique ongoing study into the state of the IT industry by the people who know it best – the IT decision-makers who are at the sharp end of strategy dilemmas, funding conflicts and resourcing challenges. We aim to build on this research each year and would like you to be part of it from the very beginning.

How does your organisation compare to the majority in terms of pain points, approaches and plans? How do others resolve the budget conflict between capitalising on exciting new technologies and patching up decaying legacy infrastructure? Are you ahead of, or behind your peers when it comes to digitalisation – or taking a different path altogether?

You can find out instantly by answering just six high level questions to receive your personalised Benchmarking Report showing how you compare to your peers in the following key areas:

  1. IT budget and investment
  2. Staffing resource and development investment
  3. Control and influence of the IT department
  4. Technology adoption
  5. Application development
  6. Challenges and opportunities

 

We believe you won’t find this valuable information anywhere else – and it’s yours for the taking. Click here to see how you compare.

There are many more insights revealed in the Little Book of IT, and as a valued customer, we’d like to share these important research findings with you. Register here to receive your complimentary copy.

LittleBookofIT.com          #LittleBookofIT

If you only do four things in 2017…

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As this is the first edition of AVAIL in 2017, we thought it worthwhile to look at what organisations can do to position themselves to succeed in the year ahead.

We caught up with Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President and Vice-Chair for Sungard Availability Services, and asked him what customers’ priorities should be over the next 12 months. This is what he told us:

 

Modernise your Data Centre strategy

Modern digital working practices are not just key – they are essential – to business success. But with the IT landscape becoming more complex, and legacy IT potentially holding back innovation, organisations need a data centre strategy that can support these bi-modal Hybrid IT functions.

Not only must modern data centre capabilities be able to support ‘Hybrid IT’,   they must also have inbuilt resilience to maintain robust security and constant availability of services to meet the demands of today’s business. End users – whether internal or external to the business – will settle for nothing less. Juggling data centre modernisation while maintaining constant uptime and appropriate security is no mean feat.

With the vast array of aspects involved in delivering the right infrastructure to deliver business outcomes, organisations increasingly need expert help to achieve these data centre environments.


Know where your data resides

The events of 2016 – and their repercussions for 2107 – are certain to bring the issue of data sovereignty back to the forefront. Companies should be looking more holistically at where their data is hosted, where it’s backed up, moved and recovered, as well as who can see it along the way. The UK’s vote to leave the European Union has thrown up far more questions about data laws and compliance, and will require businesses to consider this more closely, particularly with the onset of the EU’s General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR), which has the potential to affect companies not only in Europe but worldwide.

Data laws are constantly subject to change, with region and country specific regulation often causing a headache for large organisations. Working with a third-party provider who is open and honest about data access and data residency, as well as offer global options that allow a company to meet country level regulations, will be vital.


Get the Tech or lose the Talent

In 2016 our research found that over a fifth of employees have already left a job because they didn’t feel they had access to the latest digital technology. With many roles increasingly relying on tech, businesses who fail to listen to employee demands and invest in the tools they need could soon find themselves rapidly losing headcount.

However, it would be a mistake to simply throw money and technology at the problem. To avoid digital discontent across the business, assessing and developing an agile company culture will be vital. Early adopters of technology can help to increase a wider uptake if these people are harnessed to influence employees towards the cause. Once you begin to encourage employees to embrace changes to technology, future tech should be easier to incorporate; helping to increase adoption rates and making its impact on the business sooner rather than later.


Hire a Digital Training Officer

Organisations need skilled and adaptive employees to survive this current storm of uncertainty. While bringing in new talent can help with this, businesses should be placing just as much emphasis on training their existing staff. To do this effectively, it may be necessary to hire or create a Digital Training Officer (DTO).

Operating across the entire business, the DTO role would be responsible for upskilling employees in digital technologies. DTOs should also be tasked with empowering the workforce to get the most out of the latest digital tools – from social platforms such as Yammer, through to more complex, divisional specific applications, such as the sales team’s mobile CRM. With social and digital media now an integral part of daily life, the DTO needs to ensure its appropriate strategic fit to the commercial life of the enterprise too.

The only thing we can be certain of is uncertainty itself. Whether disruption comes from political, environmental, social or technological origins, business leaders can be assured it will come their way. The decision they need to make is to understand where their most likely exposures lie, and use that understanding to build in the solutions that will deliver the non-stop access to their businesses that their customers demand.  The people, processes and technologies exist to help them achieve this. Having a cloud or Managed Services Partner can be part of this process, helping to guide organisations through this era of the unknown and allowing them to focus on innovating and remaining competitive.

Here’s to a successful 2017 for all our readers!

Managed Cloud AWS gives you the best of two leading brands

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From 31 March, Sungard Availability Services will offer managed services on both our hosted private cloud (HPC) and on Amazon Web Services’ (AWS). Managed Cloud – AWS will give you all the compute power, database storage, content delivery and other functionality your business needs coupled with the expert design, configuration and support you expect from a Sungard AS managed service.

In a very short period of time, cloud adoption has moved from experimentation to mainstream production workloads. AWS’ compute capacity is ten times greater than its 14 competitors combined[1] and millions of customers already use AWS cloud products and solutions. But, as many businesses have found, migrating applications to a cloud environment is not easy.

To start with, one size does not fit all. The needs of your applications are what determine the right infrastructure and cloud choices and, consequently, some 85%[2] of organisations are adopting a multi-cloud strategy – choosing different clouds for different applications. IT teams recognise the need for a cloud strategy but are looking for help in identifying, creating and delivering this strategy to avoid the risk of making costly mistakes.

At the same time, Hybrid IT is a reality for most with almost three out of four businesses forced to rely on legacy systems that are not suitable for cloud, adding to the complexity of their IT environment. While many cloud recovery services focus solely on cloud-based applications, Sungard AS’ holistic approach to recovery means we can recover all your IT environment, no matter how complex. This includes related applications that run on physical legacy systems. They may account for only a small proportion of your infrastructure but cannot be ignored because your cloud-based IT can still be dependent on physical legacy systems to deliver part of a mission-critical business application or process. As a result, if your cloud application is dependent on legacy IT, the slowest recoverable technology will hold back the recovery time performance of the virtual machine(s).

In this age of high profile cyberattacks and platform outages, keeping your data secure and IT infrastructure up-and-running has never been more important. Managed Cloud – AWS gives you the option to recover to and from AWS, a Hosted Private Cloud or any other infrastructure as part of a holistic recovery. Through our portfolio of recovery services ranging from self-managed to fully-managed recovery, we offer a broad range of Recovery Time (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) according to business expectations and budget, which are backed by industry-leading SLAs.

Highlights of our managed service for AWS

  • Account Federation –Providing a single view to all the accounts in your environment. Using our single sign on to access all your AWS accounts under Sungard AS management. We use native AWS Identity and Access Management
    (IAM) to provide the appropriate level of predefined
    role-based access.
  • Configuration and compliance – While AWS offers the basic building blocks for configuration and compliance across accounts, Sungard AS’ Managed Cloud – AWS ensures these checks are enabled and enforced across every account.
  •  Billing alerts based on your pre-set thresholds to quickly identify if your teams or applications exceed spending thresholds.
  • Enhanced Snapshot tool – AWS’ native snapshot functionality works, but can be expensive, hard to manage, and does not allow for scheduling. So, we developed our Enhanced Snapshot tool that works with AWS’ native snapshot functionality, but adds extra features such as:
    • Storage cost savings: Saves most recent snapshot to EBS and moves historical snapshots to S3 at S3 pricing, reducing the cost of snapshot storage by up to 40%
    • Deduplication: Further reduces storage costs
    • Scheduling: You control when the snapshots are taken.
  • Enterprise-grade support with 24/7/365 monitoring and support provided by AWS-certified engineers.

As with all services we offer, Sungard AS starts by listening to your IT and business requirements. We then work with you to identify which applications are cloud-ready, which are best served in an AWS environment and build a plan to migrate. We will then help you architect and manage the right AWS environment for your applications, using a number of tools we have developed to enhance your AWS experience and ensure you build to best practice.

If you’re attracted by the opportunity to exploit all the benefits of AWS cloud services with the customised configuration, recoverability and support provided by Sungard AS, call us on 0800 143 413 or email avail@sungardas.com to find out more!

 

[1] Gartner Magic Quadrant for Cloud Infrastructure as a Service 2016, Worldwide

[2] IDC FutureScape: Worldwide IT Industry Predictions 2017

Today’s apps mean big business

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Today, apps are no longer just for games – they are taking on big business. Just as David once felled Goliath with a well-aimed pebble, so too are start-up businesses disrupting their larger, more established rivals with one small, newly developed tool: digital-first apps. Appealing to the end-user – both internally with staff, and externally with customers – apps have transformed business operations, levelling the playing field and giving smaller businesses a chance to compete.

In the banking industry, for example, not only are apps changing the operating models of established banks but the market is seeing the rise of numerous new players – such as Mondo and Atom Bank – which are completely based on apps. Essentially, operating as a ‘virtual’ bank, they offer a more personalised and supportive user experience that is optimised for smartphones.

This is not isolated to the banking sector. Apps have been gathering momentum and are steadily changing the way our society and workforce interacts – from communication to shopping, healthcare to entertainment. Apps are now big business: the Apple store saw over 100m app downloads in 2015 alone, while Google’s equivalent store sold over 200m. Clearly apps represent a serious opportunity for revenue and can be a crucial component in any modern business’ go-to-market strategy.

Apps vs Applications: What’s the difference? Building a strong foundation

As Sungard AS customers, you already know that getting the underlying infrastructure right is critical, offering a strong and robust foundation from which applications can be delivered to an exponentially growing and enthusiastic market. It is, however, easier said than done. When it comes to ensuring your organisation has the right infrastructure to support its applications, there are four key questions to ask…

Firstly, what are your performance demands? For example, if you’re simply storing databases then you don’t need resources required for mining and analysing data. Similarly, if you’re using the application to support a data archive, then performance is a far lower priority than if users are regularly accessing the application.

Next, what level of protection does the data require? Do you have the appropriate security protocols in place? Clearly employee details, or financial results must be kept under heavy encryption but your organisation is unlikely to require the same level of protection for its canteen menu or Christmas party plans, for example.

Another question to ask is whether your organisation is operating in a field where compliance is an issue? If, you require customers to share credit card data then you need an infrastructure than can support PCI DSS regulation. Additionally, are there any geographical restrictions placed on where your data must reside based on the regions in which your organisation operates?

Finally, what are your recovery needs? Should the worst happen, what applications need to be prioritised to ensure the organisation can move forward? Which can wait? It’s important to consider not only impact to revenue but also reputational damage, for example – prioritising the recovery of a customer on-boarding system over the existing accounts of current users is likely to do untold harm in the long term.

Ultimately, businesses run on IT and nowadays that means apps and applications – both traditional and agile. In the plainest language: downtime in these applications means the business does not function. Having the right infrastructure is crucially important to the future of all organisations, regardless of sector or size.


Get it right and you’ll enjoy ‘appy days!



Apps drive Infra_brochure cover captureRelated content:

Your applications drive everyday business, but what’s driving your applications?

Download our Applications Drive Infrastructure brochure to find out more.

What does the GDPR mean for your business?

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The General Data Protection Regulation (GDPR) is likely to impact smaller companies as a recent study shows that 82%1 of SMEs are unaware of the new legislation and will potentially be hit with large fines when it starts being enforced next year.

The GDPR will replace all the existing data protection laws across Europe and shape the way in which companies handle, protect and profit from data. All businesses and not-for-profit organisations that process personal data concerning employees, customers or prospects who are in the EU and/or are EU citizens fall within its scope, wherever in the world the company is based and even if the data is processed outside the EU.

In other words, European data protection law will now apply worldwide, and businesses have until 25 May 2018 to prepare.

So what exactly is the GDPR?

Through the GDPR, the EU recognises:

  1. The right to private life as a universal human right and
  2. The right to have one’s personal data safeguarded as a distinct, standalone universal human right.

It is by attaching rights to an individual’s data separately to the right attached to an individual, that the EU can demand EU-grade data protection standards on businesses in other countries. The onus is on businesses to determine if they are in scope. As you are reading AVAIL, it is a safe bet to say that your company is within its scope, but to qualify this assumption, consider three simple questions:

  1. Is your organisation based in the EU?
  2. Does your organisation handle data concerning EU-based individuals?
  3. Does your organisation do any kind of business with organisations to which 1 or 2 apply?

If you answered yes to any of the three questions, it is most likely that your organisation is in scope of the GDPR. Unless you are confident your existing data handling procedures are already compliant with the regulation, this means action needs to be taken now to prepare for the May 2018 deadline.

There has been a lot of noise in the IT press about swingeing fines and GDPR is frequently portrayed as the new corporate bogeyman. It has to be said these fears are not without foundation: a two-tier sanctions regime will apply and breaches of the law could lead to fines of up to €20 million or 4% of global annual turnover for the preceding financial year, whichever is the greater, being levied by data watchdogs2.

However, scaremongering is not a constructive approach. The good news is that correct implementation of the GDPR will not only ensure compliance and mitigate the risk of fines but, more importantly, will give compliant businesses a competitive advantage. That’s why Sungard AS advocates that organisations consider GDPR a central plank of business strategy that has high visibility with the Board.

Our Resilience consultants have drawn up a 12-step plan to guide you through the process.

  1. Brief senior management

Ensure the board is aware of the changes to data protection law and how this affects the business.  Consider booking a Sungard AS GDPR Awareness Master Class for your C-Suite personnel.

 

  1. Kick-off a GDPR programme

This should be led by C-level executives (or heads of department in smaller organisations) and include the CEO, CIO, CSO and CCO or whoever is responsible for Compliance.  The importance of having IT and Legal people speaking the same language and briefing the Executive cannot be stressed enough.

 

  1. Consider whether your organisation needs to appoint a DPO

The GDPR requires public authorities and other organisations whose core activities require regular and systematic monitoring of data subjects on a large scale, or that process a large scale of special categories of data to appoint a Data Protection Officer (DPO) who will guide the implementation of GDPR requirements and monitor compliance.  The DPO should be the head of the data privacy governance structure, liaise with the supervisory authority (the Information Commissioner’s Office for UK businesses) and report directly to leadership. The ideal candidate will be IT conversant, and have good business acumen whilst also being proficient on all GDPR matters. Recruiting a DPO may prove time-consuming, so we advise customers to make this a priority.

 

  1. Update data governance policies and procedures to ensure they reflect the GDPR requirements.

 

  1. Analyse the GDPR and understand the legal implications for your business

Identify the risks associated with your business model and address them by means of adequate data governance. Where appropriate, streamline processes. Pay attention to processes that use personal data for profiling. Marketing, HR and Sales will probably need to adjust their ways of working to ensure compliance.

 

  1. Review your Record Management Strategy

Identify where personal data is being collected or acquired, the purpose for which it is being processed, and whether this data is shared with any other organisation. If this information is not currently available, a detailed investigation will be required so that all personal data and its flow within the organisation is accurately mapped.

 

  1. Run an awareness campaign in your company

Unless your business is a one-man band, you need to ensure that all personnel are aware and engaged in the quest for GDPR compliance.

 

  1. Challenge the basis under which personal data is stored, collected and processed

Review the more prescriptive GDPR definition of consent and determine if a new request for consent is necessary.

 

  1. Implement any necessary technical adjustments to ensure GDPR data rights are fulfilled

These are the right to be informed, to rectification, to erasure, to restrict processing, to object and rights in relation to automated decision-making and profiling and the new right to data portability.

 

  1. Review the current mechanisms for international data transfers

Be aware that the adequacy of Privacy Shield (which replaced Safe Harbour) is currently a subject of concern.

 

  1. Examine your supply chain

Ensure your efforts to comply are not undermined by engaging in business with non-compliant providers or business partners.

 

  1. Embed privacy in your operation

This is the only sustainable way to ensure compliance on an ongoing basis. GDPR is here and will be for the foreseeable future, even after Brexit.

 

Sungard AS can support you on your GDPR journey

Our consultants can help you initiate a GDPR compliance programme, develop the business case and establish a plan of action to gain competitive advantage by achieving cyber resiliency and regulatory compliance. To find out more, speak to your Account Manager, call 0800 143 413 or email avail@sungardas.com

 

Join us for a GDPR Breakfast Briefing

Sungard AS will be hosting a roadshow of breakfast briefings across the UK. Dates are currently being confirmed, but if you’d like to register your interest, please email events.uk@sungardas.com or call 0800 143 413.

 

About the author:
Rogelio photo_croppedRogelio Aguilar – Senior Consultant, Cyber Resilience, Security & Privacy – Sungard Availability Services

Rogelio studied Cybernetics and Computing Sciences in Mexico City, and gained an MSc in Information Security in London.

His areas of specialisation include Information Risk Management, Cyber Resilience, Data Governance and Regulatory Compliance.

He brings 20 years’ experience in the IT industry working with clients from the Energy, Financial, Retail, Broadcasting, Transport, Telecommunication, Legal and Education sectors in Europe and the Americas.

 

 

 

 

1 Survey of 821 IT and business professionals responsible for data privacy across the US, Canada, Asia Pacific (Australia, Hong Kong, Singapore, India), UK, Germany, Sweden, Belgium, The Netherlands, France, Italy, Spain and Poland conducted by Dimensional Research on behalf of Dell https://www.dell.com/learn/us/en/vn/press-releases/2016-10-11-dell-survey-shows-organizations-lack-awareness

2 http://www.computerweekly.com/news/450401190/UK-firms-could-face-122bn-in-data-breach-fines-in-2018

Ten steps to a successful recovery

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Just a few months into the year and with several high-profile IT outages – RBS, NatWest and HSBC – hitting the headlines, we thought it timely to share our top tips for a successful recovery with you.

Although ten steps may sound easy, following them involves a great deal of complexity and requires not inconsiderable resources if the desired Recovery Time Objectives (RTO) and Recovery Point Objectives (RPO) are to be achieved. It may be tempting to skip a stage but, in our experience, organisations that fail to address each one of these ten steps find their availability expectations aren’t met at the executive level or, worse still, the recovery process doesn’t work at all.

 

  1. Identify business availability requirements

It may appear to be stating the obvious but it is vital to ensure the specified availability requirements meet the actual needs of the business and stakeholders or executive sponsorship may not be forthcoming. Typically, customers tell us they either over- or under-engineer the recovery solution, investing too little or too much and not delivering the optimal recovery performance stakeholders across the business want.

 

  1. Understand business/IT risks

You need to know what business and IT risks your business is exposed to, by location and by process. Engagements with customers often reveal an optimistic view of risks, or risks that simply haven’t been considered – such as who is recovering the production IT whilst your team is carrying out recovery? Who recovers the business if your IT team has been affected by the same disruption?

 

  1. Map your dependencies

From an IT perspective, you cannot accurately scope a recovery project if you don’t know what IT and applications you need to protect and recover. Shadow IT implemented by other departments – a reality in more than eight out of ten organisations1 – exposes the business to significant DR failure risks. And you need to know which bit of IT is dependent on the other.

 

  1. Tier your application criticality

In order to arrive at the optimal solution in terms of cost and performance and align that to business expectations, applications need to be tiered according to their value and criticality to the business.

 

  1. Apply the right recovery technologies

Only then can the right recovery technologies be applied based on cost/performance and suitability for your applications, processes and budget.

 

  1. Document and automate recovery processes/SLAs

Recovery processes need to be fully documented, rather than simply hope all goes well on the day. Recovery instructions should be kept up-to-date, along with recovery tools and processes. If you simply do not have the resources to document recovery you must ask the question: Who will do it instead?

 

  1. Protect your data – export it out of the business

To successfully recover, your all-important data needs to be safely and securely exported out of the business and stored for recovery and archive purposes. The way in which this is done will affect data retrieval times and, ultimately, your recovery performance.

 

  1. Connect your recovery data to the recovery server/environments

Currently, no single recovery technology can recover a complex business. So, it is essential to create the right recovery environments that are compatible and in sync with your production IT to meet your recovery objectives.

 

  1. Execute clear roles and responsibilities at time of test/disaster

Time is of the essence in the event of a business interruption so it’s important to plan ahead to determine who does what and when at time of disaster. Which people with the right knowledge and tools will perform the recovery – assuming they are available at time of test or disaster and aren’t abroad, sick or on holiday?

 

  1. Manage the lifecycle of changes

Recovery planning and delivery is not a one-off event. You will need to implement a rolling programme to ensure the ongoing lifecycle management of recovery is maintained and fit-for-purpose as your business and IT changes daily. Even the smallest of changes can scupper your recovery performance.

 

A collaborative, outcome-focused partner

If all this sounds too daunting, Sungard AS can help. As a customer, you already know we are on your side as a trusted partner. We will work collaboratively with you to help overcome the challenges of recovery complexity, scale and lifecycle management which might otherwise frustrate the recovery of your complex IT environment.

Our value proposition to you is the Guaranteed Recovery of Complex IT.

Quite simply, we make the unrecoverable, recoverable, the slow to recover, faster to recover.

With a 35-year heritage in disaster recovery, Sungard AS’ managed recovery service is proven to deliver outstanding recovery performance and value compared to the rest of the market.

For the 12 months to October 2016, in every month bar one, which fell to 87%, our customers enjoyed above 90% recovery success2

To put this performance in context, outside Sungard AS, only 35% of organisations recover successfully and only 6% of organisations meet their own RTO recovery targets without a hitch, according to Gartner3.

 

If you’d like to discuss putting our expertise to work for you, call us on 0800 143 413 or email avail@sungardas.com

 

 

1 Source: Survey of 1,350 IT decision-makers across the US (400), UK (300), India (200), France (150), Sweden (100), Ireland (100) and Canada (100) conducted by Vanson Bourne – November 2016

2 Sungard Availability Services Monthly Recovery Management Test Success data, November 2015 – October 2016

3 Gartner Predicts Business Continuity 2017

Tame the Bear series: Cloud computing imposes a new world order

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tame-the-bear-black_400In the last issue of AVAIL, we featured Sungard Availability Services-commissioned Tame the Bear research into the impact of cloud computing, focusing on the financial services sector.

You may recall the survey, conducted by specialist IT research agency Vanson Bourne, questioned 700 IT decision-makers and 1,400 office workers from businesses in the UK, Ireland, France, Sweden and the US.

We now look at how these technological changes are affecting some other well-established industries…

Manufacturing sector held back by legacy systems

Technology is revolutionising the manufacturing industry with cloud computing playing a pivotal role in driving supply chain efficiencies and increasing product output while reducing costs. In a volatile global market, it also gives IT the flexibility to spin up and down according to demand. But much of the manufacturing sector still relies on legacy applications and attempting to integrate these systems with the new technology needed to bring them into the modern, digital-centric era is a complex task.

The upshot is that while 80% of manufacturers think digital transformation is vital, over a third of their employees believe their organisation is not committed enough to achieving it.

Promise and potential pratfalls for retail sector

Retailers find technology can be a double-edged sword. From delivering customer insights to helping them cope with often dramatic fluctuations in seasonal traffic and phenomena like Black Friday, Cyber Monday and Christmas, it offers retailers great opportunities when things are running well. However, the flip side is that the sector’s heavy dependence on technology means the potential for disaster has also increased when things go wrong and consumer expectations are not met.

And while digital transformation is a priority for 88% of retailers, almost a quarter (24%) of employees do not understand how to use the shiny new digital tools their employer has provided to them.

Public sector has yet to get its claws into digital transformation

As for the public sector, the research suggests the public sector does not have the same commitment to digital transformation as their private sector peers. This is a mistake as it offers improved efficiency and effectiveness of IT – crucial in this age of the always-on citizen. This sector is missing out on the improvements made possible by digital tools, which could help transform perceptions of the sector and lure talent away from the private sector.

Public sector respondents expressed the biggest concern for security of all the sectors (39%) surveyed. But with government ‘digital first’ initiatives and the need to build confidence in Britain at every level as we broker our exit from the EU, the public sector cannot afford to lag behind in the move towards digital transformation.

Download the full report on how organisations in different sectors are handling the challenges of digital disruption here!

 

TameTheBear.com               #TameTheBear

Sungard AS enjoys success in leading industry awards

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We’re delighted to share the news that Sungard Availability Services has made the shortlist in four categories of the CIR Business Continuity Awards 2017, with two further categories to be announced on the night.  The awards have evolved over the years in line with the industry and are now as much about recognising demonstrable commitment to resilience, as they are about achieving continuity. 

This year, we are shortlisted for:

  • BCM Planning Software of the Year
  • DRaaS Award
  • Initiative of the Year
  • Resilience in Infrastructure & IT Service Delivery.

Meanwhile, the winner of these two categories will be announced on the night:

  • Contribution to Resilience and Continuity
  • Lifetime Achievement – longstanding Sungard AS customer, former Advisory Board member and industry expert Steve Mellish is deservedly in contention.

Deborah Ritchie, editor, CIR and chair of the Business Continuity Awards judging panel commented, “Now in their 19th year, the Awards recognise those business continuity, security, resilience and risk professionals whose innovative strategies and industry savvy make them stand out above the rest.”

The winners will be determined by an independent judging panel and announced at the BC Awards Gala Dinner and Ceremony on 8 June 2017 at the London Marriott Hotel, Grosvenor Square. In the meantime, the full shortlist can be viewed here.

 

AssuranceCM scoops top accolade

In February this year, Sungard AS’ AssuranceCM was named Product/Service Provider of the Year at the prestigious Disaster Recovery Institute (DRI) International 2017 awards gala in Las Vegas

According to DRI International, the world’s leading business continuity and disaster recovery training organisation, its Awards of Excellence recognise pre-eminent organisations and individuals for achieving a certain level of excellence in the business continuity, disaster recovery and crisis management fields. Selection is based on commitment to promoting business continuity to both the core customer base and wider market.

“Over 750 customers in healthcare, finance, insurance, manufacturing, and utilities rely on our AssuranceCM software to provide the business continuity and recovery services that are critical to keep their businesses running 24-7,” said Bhuvana Sundaresan, Senior Director, Product Management at Sungard AS.

“This award recognises our team’s dedication to helping customers achieve operational resilience by delivering unmatched service and continued innovation in business continuity and recovery.”

AssuranceCM is a complete, integrated business continuity management suite that offers planning, assessments, incident management/testing and reporting on a single, inter-connected platform.

In other award news, we were delighted that our G-Cloud services and our digital transformation services  were both shortlisted in the UK Cloud Awards.

 

Resilience takes centre stage with widespread cloud adoption

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EIU report cover_250Sungard Availability Services has sponsored research from the Economist Intelligence Unit (EIU), the research and analysis arm of the Economist Group (of the magazine), into cloud resilience.

Recognising that today it is not enough to just react to disaster or disruption but rather to attain a state of organisational resilience, the study explores what CIOs need to do to exploit the cloud’s potential to achieve this goal.

‘Cloud Complexity: The Need for Resilience’ asks how companies can achieve continuity and agility in the cloud and looks at what challenges must be overcome to succeed.

Organisational resilience is about proactively anticipating and preparing for future events, both sudden and gradual, to bounce back more quickly. It’s about setting sights higher than mere business survival to achieving business prosperity by increasing agility, speed and innovation. Expanding responsibility to involve the whole company in the process is critical to achieve these goals.

This is because the more complex goal of attaining resilience is intricately linked to an organisation’s overall business strategy and requires broader mobilisation of corporate capabilities across an organisation—from human resources managers to department heads to those who oversee supply chains. They will need to organise everything ranging from business processes to internal controls to capture value and mitigate the risk inherent in cloud opportunities.

EIU_Fig1

With cloud use now almost universal among organisations and only expected to grow, researchers interviewed senior executives at 304 companies with annual revenues of more than $50m across a variety of industries in the UK, France and US. They found organisational resilience is a top priority for the survey respondents. And 72% say the importance of organisational resilience will increase over the next three years.

Organisational resilience is defined by the BSI in its BS 65000 Standard as the ability to both quickly bounce back from a major disruption and to “anticipate, prepare for, respond and adapt to events—both sudden shocks and gradual change” to survive and prosper.

In fact, according to Lyndon Bird, technical director at BCI, the field of Business Continuity Management (BCM) is shifting its focus from BCM to organisational resilience. Business continuity strives to prepare an organisation for effective responses to sudden, major disruptions with minimal business impact. Organisational resilience, in contrast, alters the management posture from a reactive one to proactively anticipating and preparing for future disruption—and not just sudden cataclysmic ones, but also gradual strategic shifts.

When planning how to achieve their agility goals, 41% of companies say they plan to adopt new technologies. Of these, the cloud, emerges as the leading enabler of resilience. As Tanuja Randery, President, UK & Ireland at French electronics conglomerate Schneider Electric, notes, “Companies are no longer considering whether to migrate to the cloud but rather what…and how best to migrate.”

However, security has always been seen as the chief challenge in cloud adoption and the survey confirmed that perceptions have not changed. More than half (53%) of respondents are concerned about security breaches and leaks of confidential data while 52% were worried about disruption from cyberattacks.

EIU_Fig6

But while security fears are undoubtedly a barrier to cloud adoption, four in ten (41%) actually cite enhanced security in the cloud as a benefit.

One interviewee gave a possible explanation as to why the cloud triumphs over security concerns. Noting the heavy investments cloud providers have made to address the security challenges, he said, “It is much easier today to provide 100% uptime so the cloud is actually a better place for security…On-premise is more risky.”

The business continuity agenda has traditionally been part of the risk and compliance function which has struggled to gain broader buy-in from other parts of the business — primarily because it has been considered by other functions as “not our problem”. Consequently, the increased emphasis on attaining resilience is achieving what BCM only rarely could – gaining prominence at the highest levels of an organisation.

The report summarises the five key things the IT department needs to do to allow cloud computing to play a positive role in achieving corporate resilience, namely addressing:

  1. Specialist and regulatory requirements
  2. Systems integration and governance
  3. Data integrity and process re-engineering
  4. Ongoing service and maintenance
  5. People and skill set re-alignment

Download the full report here

Keith’s Welcome: Looking beyond business continuity

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Welcome to this winter edition of AVAIL, which is packed with news and features that make informative and, hopefully, thought-provoking reading.

We feature three pieces of research in this issue. Firstly, the findings of our latest global research with the Economist, which shows achieving organisational resilience is a top priority for CIOs. In this vein, our in-house expert Dr Sandra Bell explains why today resilience, rather than business continuity management, should be the ultimate goal for those serious about ensuring availability.

Secondly, as part of our Tame the Bear campaign, we asked IT decision-makers and employees about the biggest IT issues confronting their industry today – see what they told us here.

Thirdly, we invite you to participate in the Little Book of IT, which will give an inside look at how IT leaders are taming the challenges they face in 2017. This is a unique opportunity to join your peers in reshaping how the industry thinks about IT next year. Not only will your views influence how other IT leaders make buying decisions, but by taking part in the research you’ll be eligible to receive a free copy of the final printed hardback book to keep.

The bigger we get, the more important it is to keep in touch with our customers and see our business through their eyes. So I would like to add my personal thanks to all those customers who took the time to share their views with us on the service they receive in our annual customer satisfaction survey. You can see their feedback here.

And I am delighted to introduce you to Carmel Owens, our new General Manager for Ireland, who has great plans to take the Irish business forward.

As always, I hope you enjoy this issue and my team welcomes your feedback on any aspect of the magazine. Just send your comments to the editor at AVAIL@sungardas.com. In the meantime, I and the rest of the Sungard AS team wish you and your families a happy and healthy festive season.

Keith Tilley

EVP, global sales and customer services management

Growing from business continuity to organisational resilience

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By Dr Sandra Bell
Head of Business Continuity & ISDG Consulting (Europe), Sungard Availability Services

 

CEOs have long understood to survive and prosper they need to adapt to (and influence) their external environment. Their role is to direct corporate strategy, which involves looking both inward at the strengths and weaknesses of the company and outward at external factors that can affect the organisation using various analytical techniques.

However, the world is constantly changing and organisations’ corporate strategy must constantly adapt to keep up with it. Failing to adapt to change generally leads to business failure.  In 1990, Richard Pascale famously claimed that “Nothing fails like success” by which he meant that what was a strength yesterday becomes the root of weakness today. Relentless change requires that businesses continuously reinvent themselves yet we tend to depend on what worked yesterday and refuse to let go of what worked so well for us in the past. To avoid this trap, businesses must stimulate a spirit of inquiry and healthy debate. They must encourage a creative process of self-renewal based on constructive conflict. Ten years later, Gary Hamel wrote about ‘Strategic decay’, the premise of which, in a nutshell, is that the value of every strategy, no matter how brilliant, will decay over time.

While corporate strategy needs to be able to deal with change both gradual change (described by Charles Handy in 1989 as “strategic drift”) and rapid (“transformational”) change caused by discontinuities or ‘exogenous shocks’, resilient organisations also need to deal with perturbations, deviations and disruptions.

For example, let’s assume there are two competing coffee shops on a high street that is prone to seasonal flooding and power outages. Due to the fact that the high street floods regularly it would not be unreasonable for both coffee shops to have business continuity plans that involve the use of sandbags to prevent floodwater entering the premises and backup power generation to keep the equipment in the shop running in the event of power outages.

During normal flooding and/or power outage events both businesses deploy their sandbags and/or power backups and are able to continue serving coffee to their respective customers.

However, if the flood was more severe than anticipated, customers and suppliers may not be able to negotiate the flooded high street to reach the coffee shops. Likewise, the power outage may last longer and be more widespread than anticipated, affecting the coffee shops’ customers in their own homes.

The coffee shop reliant on its business continuity solution would concentrate on protecting its tangible assets and wait for the floodwaters to recede and the power to be restored before re-opening for business.

In contrast, a resilient coffee shop would immediately set about working out how to meet its customers’ needs despite the flooding and power loss. It may, for example, draw on its wide network of contacts to borrow a boat enabling employees to travel through the floodwaters and deliver coffee and baked goods direct to peoples’ homes or places of work and bring in supplies. It may also decide to temporarily diversify its range of food to ensure that local vulnerable people receive hot food despite a lack of power in their homes.

The response of both coffee shops is equally valid. However, the customer goodwill towards the resilient coffee shop is likely to ensure that its competitive advantage and market share remain high long after the floodwaters have receded.

Today’s consumers expect organisations to be resilient

Furthermore, today’s consumers are facilitated by information technology and have an ever-increasing expectation for 24/7 service 365 days a year. If they can’t buy exactly what they want, when they want, from their normal source they can now shop around globally. This means that if organisations do not have agile corporate strategies and resilience that enables them to respond successfully to market volatility, economic uncertainties, fluctuations in energy and commodity rates and global security instabilities and operational disruptions they can easily lose market share and confidence to new and non-traditional competitors.

A complex global commercial environment may be good at driving business efficiency but a rise in consumerism is driving a local business model and woe betide the organisation that does not heed this.

“Today’s consumers expect the modern organisation to be both agile and resilient”

Likewise, gone are the days when customers were happy to accept downtime while a heroic recovery was executed. They would much rather trust an organisation who successfully anticipates and manages risk in a calm and measured manner. In other words, today’s consumers expect the modern organisation to be both agile and resilient – it always delivers on its value proposition regardless of the negative stresses it encounters. It also means that resilience is a core, and valuable, business differentiator in today’s rapidly changing and volatile business environment. In fact, research suggests the need for organisational resilience will only increase.

EIU_Fig1

How to achieve resilience?

Resilience means having the will, skill and capability to adapt in a positive manner to both a changing and fluctuating environment. However, the modern organisation is a complex beast and it is not always easy to get every part of the organisation to work together. Most organisations find it hard enough keeping their corporate strategy up to speed – and therefore the thought of trying to respond collectively to a temporary fluctuation or disruption often falls into the too difficult pile. This means that organisations at best rely on Business Continuity alone and, at worst, keep their fingers crossed and hope for the best when faced with disruption.

To be resilient an organisation needs three things:

  • An executive who makes a conscious decision to adapt to disruption together with the skill and ability to orchestrate the organisation to do so in real time
  • The organisation as a whole possessing the capability, mandate and confidence to adapt and evolve as and when required
  • An understanding of the relationships and resources the organisation can and may need to access from others to aid their response

When questioned about the barriers to achieving resilience, a recent Sungard Availability Services-sponsored survey by IDG Connect revealed that effective leadership and immutable IT infrastructures are seen as the two biggest barriers to achieving corporate resilience.

Additionally, as the modern business is almost completely reliant on information technology then there has been little incentive to make other parts of the business agile if they are anchored to IT systems that are rigid, slow and expensive to change.

However, by following a few simple steps, the cloud can now change all this and offer the agility, flexibility and lower lifecycle costs necessary to free up the rest of the organisation to adapt and evolve, even in the face of the most transitory operational disruptions.

As with any new capability, skills need to be developed to harness the benefits, and this is where Sungard Availability Services’ Consultants can help. In addition to helping an organisation’s IT department implement the five key cloud requirements for resilience (see the EIU article for the list), they also provide services such as:

  • Resilience Maturity Assessments to help organisations determine their strengths and weaknesses and build a roadmap for the most cost-effective way to develop resilience capability and skills.
  • Executive Coaching and Masterclasses to help develop skills such as crisis decision-making, resilience command and control, and how executives can effectively balance obligations to multiple stakeholders while under stress.
  • Strategy and Planning – Helping organisations develop plans that are flexible to meet changing situations; make best use of their internal resources and leverage external resources and relationships.
  • Exercising & Testing – Providing a safe environment where organisations can develop, test and assess their resilience skills and capabilities.

If you’d like to discuss how our consulting team can help your organisation improve its resilience, call us on 0800 143 413 or email avail@sungardas.com

 

About the author:

Dr Sandra Bell is Head of Business Continuity & ISDG Consulting (Europe) for Sungard Availability Services. She is a seasoned security and risk professional with over 25 years’ experience of the design and management of strategic, business-friendly security, continuity and risk solutions in the public and private sectors. Her experience ranges from the management of security and protection of data within the UK’s main business process outsourcer to the financial and government sectors to the protection of the largest part of the UK’s critical national infrastructure.

 

Your blueprint for a successful cloud transition

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You’ve listened to all the benefits of cloud computing, explored whether it would be right for your organisation and, finally, made the decision to make the move. But what happens next?

Sungard Availability Services has helped numerous companies of different sizes in various sectors successfully transition to a cloud environment. As with any infrastructure change, the secret to a trouble-free migration is careful planning.

Where should your cloud be based?

Should it be managed in-house, outsourced to a third party or a mix of the two?

What applications should be moved to the cloud first and which in a later phase?

We’ve produced a A blueprint for building your IT strategy infographic to follow that will answer all these questions and more.

Infographic_snippet

It covers the critical steps organisations need to go through, from establishing what you want to achieve and classifying your applications to choosing which cloud model, pricing structure and management model would best suit your organisation.

And, of course, you can always call on our experienced cloud consultants if you feel you need a little expert help to guide you through the transition. Just call 0800 143 413 or email avail@sungardas.com to find out more.

Tenet Group places a premium on guarantee of availability

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Leading financial adviser support group Tenet needed a cloud hosting provider it could rely on to support the mission-critical applications its advisers depend on daily. Having been let down by one provider in the past, its choice of technology partner to deliver a cloud solution was critical.  With availability of paramount importance, Tenet chose Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS) from Sungard Availability Services, our track record reassuring the company of our ability to deliver.

Matt Bottrill, Infrastructure & Security Manager for Tenet Group, explains, “Downtime would have a huge impact – not just on the service we provide our advisers, but on our ability to carry out our regulatory duties, as well as causing potential reputational damage. I can’t stress the importance of availability enough.”

As a driving force behind Tenet Group’s cloud strategy, Matt Bottrill was acutely aware his personal credibility was also at stake. He recalls, “We went through all the issues we’d experienced with our previous provider systematically and addressed them one by one, which gave me peace of mind. It was a critical meeting in gaining buy-in from the Tenet Group senior managers who were present.”

Sungard AS’s cloud consultants first gained a thorough understanding of Tenet as an organisation before designing a solution based on the best combination of its physical legacy environments and new cloud services to ensure seamless implementation and successful application delivery. ​

While ECS is hosted at Sungard AS’s London Technology Centre, Tenet has the added reassurance it will automatically failover to a geographically separate site in the event of an outage. This is particularly valuable as its ability to provide a full package of support to Independent Financial Advisors is a key differentiator for Tenet.

Tenet is enjoying many other benefits in addition to impressive uptime performance. “Apart from the resilience Sungard AS offers, there were all the obvious advantages that a stable, tried and tested cloud platform offers such as increased agility and that by outsourcing day-to-day operational tasks we have freed up resource to focus on things that add value to our business rather than just keeping the lights on.” As a successful, fast-growing company, scalability and flexibility were also important factors to Tenet, which has now deployed ECS to all its advisers.

Security and compliance were among the other vital considerations. “It is essential for us to know the security around the platform is watertight so personal information is secure, as compromised data could lead to fines and reputational damage. With Sungard AS that’s one less thing to worry about.”

Alongside Enterprise Cloud Services, Tenet Group contracts Workplace Recovery to give key individuals an alternative place to work in the event of its Leeds head office being inaccessible or unusable for any reason. “We’ve had a few different disaster recovery providers before and I was very impressed with Sungard AS’s Elland facility,” says Matt Bottrill. “Reliability and availability are a given with Sungard AS. Not just the cloud services but the business continuity provision too.”


Read the full case study here

If you would like to participate in our customer reference programme to share your story, visit our website for more information!

Rich pickings

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Financial services ‘big beasts’ must harness power of IT to scare off upstart challengers.

 

Sungard Availability Services’ research into corporate attitudes towards IT reveals the rise of new, digitally-native fintech organisations is challenging the established order of the financial services industry. Traditional institutions are now being forced to confront the power of technology or risk losing market share to these upstarts.

Investment in technologies that can help them meet rapidly changing market demands is crucial to the survival of the financial services industry’s old guard. This means the big beasts of the financial services sector are being forced to fight a battle on two fronts: maintaining their ageing legacy systems while, at the same time, implementing the latest digital technology to compete against cub challengers.

The survey, conducted by specialist IT research agency Vanson Bourne, questioned 700 IT decision-makers and 1,400 office workers from businesses in the UK, Ireland, France, Sweden and the US. It found that digital transformation is a priority for 92% of financial services businesses with a further 86% claiming it to be a critical factor in remaining competitive. The expected benefits are huge and include increased productivity (87%), improved customer satisfaction (51%) and opening new revenue streams (41%).

However, despite recognising the importance of digital transformation, there appears to be a disconnect when it comes to implementation. Nearly half (45%) of those working in financial services believe their current employer is behind competitors when it comes to adopting the latest digital tools and technologies.

Yet having access to the latest digital tools is considered crucial by 90% of financial services employees with well over a third (39%) admitting they would be embarrassed to work in a company without them. In fact, nearly a quarter (21%) of employees have actually left a job as the company did not enable digital working practices while a further 34% claim they would leave their current employer to join a more digitally progressive company.

With the sector already feeling the heat from digitally-native competition – such as the emergence of innovative UK start-ups Atom Bank and Mondo – this dissatisfaction with technology implementation could not only cause a competitive disadvantage but also lead to a staff retention crisis.

The banking industry has long struggled with the challenge of maintaining archaic mainframe systems, not always successfully. This year, Tesco Bank suffered huge reputational damage and loss of trust following a cyberattack in November that led to the bank refunding £2.5m to the 90,000 customers affected by the breach. The cause of the breach has not yet been revealed but the bank admits it has been ‘subject to criminal activity’[1].

All these factors are creating enormous pressure for the IT department. As well as the challenge of meeting staff demands, over half (57%) of IT decision-makers fear that the IT team cannot drive digital transformation at the speed their management team expects.

More than half (52%) of survey respondents consider integrating new applications into existing technologies is a missing skill, which is hindering their progress. This was a more acute problem for financial services organisations than any other industry surveyed in the study, which also included retail, manufacturing and the public sector. Each of these industries face their own unique challenges, which we will cover in a future edition of AVAIL.

Commenting on the findings, Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President, Global Sales & Customer Services Management, said, “The rise of new, innovative and digital-native fintech organisations is challenging the established order of the industry, with traditional institutions now being forced to confront the power of technology or risk losing market share to what they might regard as upstart competitors. Adopting the old maxim of “If you can’t beat ‘em, join ‘em”, investment in the technologies that can better enable the financial services industry’s ‘old guard’ to meet rapidly changing market demands is going to be crucial to their survival.”

The full report on how organisations are handling the challenges of digital disruption is available for download here.

 

[1] http://www.techworld.com/security/uks-13-most-infamous-data-breaches-2016-3604586/

Which strategies will your IT peers put into play in 2017?

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Based on a global study of 1,350 senior IT decision makers and conducted by specialist technology market researcher Vanson Bourne, the Little Book of IT delivers an inside look at how IT leaders are taming the challenges they face in 2017.

This global report offers you a unique chance to join your peers in reshaping how the industry thinks about IT in 2017. Influence how other IT leaders make buying decisions, and by taking part in the research you’ll be eligible to receive a free copy of the final printed hardback book to keep.

Participation in the research project involves answering 35 questions covering the following topics:

  • Budget & its control
  • Staffing resource & development investment
  • Technology adoption
  • The application of apps
  • Biggest challenges
  • Biggest IT-driven opportunities
  • Seat at the table
  • 2017 IT wish list

Answers are strictly confidential and will only be reported collectively with no personally identifiable information used. The online survey, which should take no more than 15 minutes to complete, closes on 31st December 2016.

Head to LittleBookofIT.com today to be part of the 2017 edition.

2017, a year for IT leadership and innovation.

Industry high flyer appointed General Manager of Ireland

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You may have read in the press that Carmel Owens has been appointed as General Manager of Ireland to lead our business in the region, reporting directly to Jean-Philippe Sohier, SVP of European Sales. Carmel is responsible for the strategic direction of our sales channel in Ireland, ensuring we are best placed to deliver the technologies and services customers need to ensure their critical IT is aligned to business priorities.

A graduate of Dublin City University’s School of Computer Applications, Carmel Owens has nearly 20 years’ experience working in the business technology sector, spending time at a number of well-known technology companies including EMC, Version 1 and SQS. She held the role of Head of Public Sector at EMC for three years during which she worked with government bodies and public sector organisations spread across verticals including healthcare and transport. At Version 1, Carmel worked with the wider service provider market, exploring various new business models and infrastructure approaches.

Carmel Owens’ appointment comes at an exciting time as we continue to grow our presence in Ireland through sustained investment, job creation and the launch of our Channel Partner Program. This builds upon a year of activity which has seen Sungard AS expand our capabilities across technical operations, customer services, sales and marketing, while adding the security standard ISO 27001 to our extensive list of accreditations.

Commenting on the appointment, Jean-Philippe Sohier said, “It is with great pleasure that we welcome Carmel Owens to the business. Bringing significant expertise in both technology and business, Carmel’s in-depth knowledge of Ireland and the wider European markets will be an important asset to the region. I have no doubt that she will play a crucial role in developing and implementing the strategies that help deliver success for our customers.”

Carmel herself remarked, “I am enjoying leveraging my expertise in working with some of the largest public and private sector organisations in the region as well as my relationships with channel partners and other key vendors. As part of my role I will strive not only to serve our local customers but also those who operate internationally.”

Heading in the right direction

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Our thanks go to those customers who participated in our annual customer satisfaction telephone survey and to those that have participated in our online surveys to give us feedback on how we’re doing and where we can make improvements.

This year, an external market research firm interviewed 144 Sungard Availability Services customers in the UK and Ireland by phone and asked them to rate various aspects of our service. A further 250 customers responded to a web-based survey. This is a departure from previous years when a smaller number of customers were selected at random for a telephone survey. The survey respondents contracted our Managed Services (131), Recovery Services (111), Consulting (14), Software (5) and Cloud Services (30).

Here are the headline findings:

  • 86.5% are satisfied or very satisfied with our service overall.
  • 88.7% would definitely or probably continue to subscribe.
  • 82.5% would recommend Sungard Availability Services to a business associate.
  • Importantly, 87% say they have confidence in Sungard AS to recover their business.

While far from being complacent, we were pleased to note the customers surveyed were generally satisfied or very satisfied with the services they contract. These include Recovery Services (92.0%), Cloud Services (88.1%) and Managed Services (87.7%). Customers’ positive experiences of Recovery Services were reflected in a 94.6% rating for Alerts and Invocations. Service management was also given a thumbs up with an 88.7% satisfaction rating.

We were thrilled to score 100% in several areas, namely:

  • The initial sales contact
  • Consulting services
  • Site facilities (it’s good to see the investment we’ve made in better quality coffee is paying off!)

Areas flagged for attention are project management and, again, contracts and invoicing. The good news is we do recognise this problem and are investing in improvements. We are pleased to report that changes are on their way which will simplify invoices, something we expect will prove particularly welcome to customers with multiple or lengthy invoices. Watch this space for more news!

Our people attracted particular praise with comments such as, “The staff are brilliant, very professional, very knowledgeable” from one City bank and “Very responsive… A good working relationship” from another respondent being representative of the feedback.

79.5% of customers surveyed were very satisfied or satisfied with our Marketing and communications. Looking at AVAIL, for example, we were pleased to see most readers like its online format saying it is “Better, easier to access” and “Gives a choice of how you want to view it”. (Having said that, a reminder that those who prefer a hard copy or pdf versions can still pick up a print version at all our UK sites or submit their email address to receive a pdf copy). As for content, you are generally satisfied with the story mix, but your suggestions are always welcome!

Commenting on the feedback, Keith Tilley, EVP, global sales and customer services management, remarked, “Our annual customer satisfaction survey is a valuable exercise that helps us keep in touch with customers’ experience of our services and ensure they continue to meet business needs. As in previous years, the findings will be carefully considered and acted upon over the coming months. I’d like to add my personal thanks to all those customers who took the time to take part. Although the survey is conducted annually, your feedback is welcome all year round so if you weren’t among those selected to participate, feel free to email me any time at keith.tilley@sungardas.com”.

The serious message behind industry awards

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Since the last edition of AVAIL, our innovative Recovery Execution System (RES) has been judged Winner in the BCI Continuity and Resilience Innovation category of the BCI India Awards. The judges recognised the ground-breaking nature of RES, which offers end-to-end automation and ‘touch-free’ execution of all infrastructure and application recovery procedures across hybrid IT systems. We congratulate Kaushik Ray, our VP of Global Architecture and Customer Engineering, and all the members of the Sungard Availability Services team involved in its development.

But while we are delighted with this external endorsement, industry awards are, of course, about far more than bragging rights or a night out. They are tangible recognition that a company is on the right track – an independent endorsement that it is offering products or services that customers want and, in the judges’ opinion, doing it better than their peers. That’s why, as in previous years, Sungard Availability Services is proud to have been honoured with a number of accolades across North America, Europe and India during 2016 including:

  • Gold award in the Employer of the Year – Computer Services category of the ‘Stevies’.
  • Gold in the ‘IT Executive of the Year’ category of the ‘Stevie’® International Business Awards 2016 (‘the Stevies’) went to Kaushik Ray for his role in the development of RES, which the judges said has “completely transformed our industry and brought truly remarkable results.”
  • Silver award for ‘Best New Product or Service of the Year, Software – Cloud Storage & Backup Solution’ in the Stevies for our Cloud-based Recovery for AWS. Judges highlighted the solution’s innovation in storage replication, off-site storage and automated recovery of protected workloads, noting that they bring “tremendous value” to customers.
  • Best Continuity and Resilience Provider (Service/Product) 2016 in the respected BCI European Awards for our continued efforts to promote the resilience message through ‘Education, Good Practice and Events Publications’.
  • Finalist – BCI European Awards in two categories for Recovery as a Service.
  • Finalist – Recovery of the Year in the BCI India Awards in recognition of our ability to keep customers running throughout devastating floods in Chennai, India.
  • Finalist – Continuity and Resilience Provider (Service/Product) – BCI India Awards 2016.
  • Highly Commended in the hotly contested Most Effective Recovery of the Year category of the 2016 CIR Business Continuity Awards for our unwavering support for customers throughout India’s heaviest rainfall in over 100 years.
  • A Leader in Gartner’s Magic Quadrant for BCM Planning Software* worldwide for the second year in a row with AssuranceCM. We were positioned above the 14 other providers evaluated for our ‘ability to execute’ – providing BCMP software that meets customer requirements with a high level of service and customer support. Other criteria included completeness of vision based not just on the provider’s assessment of the current market but also its anticipation of expected market and technology changes.

 

*About the Magic Quadrant

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

 

Latest webinar tackles Hybrid IT

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If you’ve ever listened to one of our on-demand webinars you will know what a treasure trove of information they are. Now, we’re delighted to announce that a new title has been added to the series: ‘Dealing with the new normal: Hybrid IT’, recorded by Sungard Availability Services’ Chris Ducker, Senior Director: Global Proposition Strategy.

At first, the cloud was positioned as the answer to everything – with claims it could simplify, reduce costs and consolidate. However, it actually makes the IT environment more complex, often resulting in a mix of cloud and legacy systems, making Hybrid IT the new norm.

In this don’t-miss webinar Chris discusses, over 19 minutes, what hybrid IT means in today’s environment: its key elements, and the implications for the CIO, transitioning from IT manager to service orchestrator, infrastructure innovator and beyond. You can listen to it here.

We are recording more webinars all the time so check our Webinars page regularly for the latest availability and resilience topics!

Keith’s welcome: Poor IT causes employees to vote with their feet

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Welcome to this bumper Autumn edition of AVAIL, which is packed with news and features to get your teeth into. With Hybrid IT continuing to be a much discussed topic, our recent Tame the Bear research demonstrates managing this mixture of old and new technology is emerging as one of the main challenges IT professionals are grappling with today.

Giving teeth to the need for digital transformation, Part II of the Tame the Bear research shows that frustration with not having the required IT tools can lead employees to ditching their jobs and moving to a more digitally-progressive employer.

Our ability to work with mixed customer environments is exemplified by Sungard AS’ Disaster Recovery as a Service, which has been awarded Leader positioning by Gartner in its authoritative Magic Quadrant for the second year running. The analyst has also placed AssuranceCM in the Leader position of its Business Continuity Management Planning Software Worldwide Magic Quadrant for the second year in a row.

We bring you a real-world example of global IT transformation involving a Hybrid IT infrastructure currently being undertaken by the dynamic logistics business Menzies.

Security is of paramount importance in building resilience and on this topic we highlight the growing ransomware threat, whereby businesses are literally held to ransom to regain control of their IT systems or data.

In service news, we turn the spotlight on our new managed cloud recovery service for AWS, which we hope will eliminate headaches and bring peace of mind to many, and our exciting new Discovery & Dependency Mapping (DDM) service will help you take the bear by the tail and unlock the mysteries of your production IT department at last.

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

Keith Tilley

EVP, global sales and customer services management

From Lab to Launch – Sungard AS CTO shares what’s happening in the research lab

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LEADERSHIP UPDATE WITH JOSH CROWE

 

To Sungard AS Chief Technology Officer (CTO) Josh Crowe, these are exciting times both in the lab and in the market. In this Q&A session with AVAIL, he pulls back the curtain to give readers a peek into what they can expect from the technologists in the Sungard AS research lab.

Q: Josh, what trends or disruptive technologies do you see shaping the market today?
Josh: There’s no question the largest innovation right now is the emergence of public cloud and dominant public cloud providers, like Amazon Web Services, Microsoft Azure and Google. It’s a fast-moving, fast-growing space that we need to keep our eyes on because these are not commodity IT platforms. These are differentiated infrastructure platforms with tremendous capabilities that we can leverage to build managed services that add value for our customers. It’s a very disruptive time in our space, but a very exciting time, too.

There are also changes in the technologies that connect infrastructures. There are new solutions coming out that provide more dynamic interconnection services between those different platforms. And, there are new methodologies emerging for how customers develop and deploy their applications in the public cloud, on our hosted private cloud or elsewhere.

Q: How are customers changing the way they build applications?
Josh: Some of our customers are taking a more modern, hybrid IT-based approach to architecting their applications. They are using micro services as a way of breaking large software projects into loosely coupled modules that communicate with each other through simple APIs. So, the way applications are being built and deployed today is significantly different than how we did it 10 years ago.

How employees access those applications changed, too. The days of everybody clocking in 9:00-5:00 and sitting behind a desk are gone. Now, employees are much more virtual and mobile and customers want to take advantage of emerging technologies to make applications more available and accessible from anywhere.

Q: What technologies are you currently evaluating or developing in the lab to respond to these trends?
Josh: Recent advances in technology, tools and security within the public cloud have us focusing on offering Sungard AS’ services on top of third-party infrastructures. Because of our experience managing all types of infrastructures, we’re also focused on advancing our existing hybrid capabilities.

As customers move applications to public or private clouds from legacy data centres, they deal with a lot of technical complexity. To address this, we’re helping our product and operations people leverage emerging interconnection tools for managing and monitoring the multiple pockets of IT our customers have.

We spent a large part of last year incubating several technologies and innovations to take the solutions we offer and evolve them to work on public cloud platforms. This came to fruition towards the end of 2015, when we released our very first third-party public cloud offering, Recovery to Cloud on Amazon Web Services. We recently released version 2.0, with the best SLA available across any of our cloud recovery solutions.

So, today, we can recover a customer’s applications in the cloud or inside our datacentre. And, we can do that in a heavily automated fashion. I’m really excited about the concept of one-click recovery, which allows customers to execute a disaster recovery test of an actual invocation during a disaster to ensure they are highly recoverable.

Q: What are you doing in the area of micro services?
Josh: From a micro services perspective, we’re working to help customers understand how sharding up their applications into piece parts and making them more service-based allows them to best leverage the capabilities of the public cloud. There are lots of opportunities for us to evolve how we offer and support this new methodology in both production and recovery environments.

Q: How do you move developments from the lab to our customers?
Josh: We work with our product teams on a daily basis. That includes evaluating a technology that might make it onto their roadmap or providing them with a prototype to take into production.
A perfect example of this is our cloud-based recovery solution for AWS. We built a working prototype that was heavily automated. We documented it, created an architecture guide and transitioned it to the product teams to take it from prototype to product. It was a very graceful transition and shows how we take advantage of the new technologies in ways that best help our customers.

Q: As CTO, how do you challenge your team to stay ahead of the curve?
As we build our CTO team, we focus on hiring people who, first and foremost, are curious. They don’t look at a problem and say, “That looks unsolvable.” They say, “I think there’s a way to solve that.”

We also hire people with an innate passion for technology and encourage independent research and experimentation to feed that passion. To go build a proof of concept, test it out and come back to the team to explain how it might work with our offerings. That’s been really critical to inspiring innovation.

It’s also important to foster and expect industry awareness when it comes to technology. To have a good perspective on who the competitors are, whether what they offer is valid or not, and how we can leverage it.

In my role, I visit a lot of our offices around the world. It’s interesting to meet folks who aren’t necessarily on the CTO team coming up with a new idea. Because innovation doesn’t just happen in a confined space on one team. It’s got to happen organically across the company.

Q: So, what keeps CTOs up at night now? And how can Sungard AS help them?
Like me, they face a challenge that presents itself on a daily basis: Balancing the need to innovate with the practical realities of running the everyday business. When new technology is introduced, it not only brings new capabilities to the business, it also brings new risks. It’s our mission to help CTOs by delivering services with the availability, security and recoverability they need, so they can worry less and focus more on innovation that will differentiate their businesses.

Q: What’s next on your technology radar?
To find out what we’re up to, I recommend visiting our blog, where we cover things like tips and tricks on using AWS, how hybrid IT is reshaping technology roadmaps, or our thoughts on new technologies and how they might impact customers. Customers can also check out our open source projects on our GitHub page. I encourage people to keep an eye on what we’re doing and to continue to ask questions, because these are very exciting times and things are always changing.

To learn more, visit our CTO Labs blog.

If you have a question for Josh, please email avail@sungardas.com

Part I: Research likens IT to a bear with a sore head

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In-depth research commissioned by Sungard Availability Services explores attitudes towards digital transformation by employees and the IT department itself. Likening IT to a bear, it concludes that at its best, IT is a powerful weapon for growth but at its worst, can be slow and unpredictable and, if put under pressure, is liable to lash out or go into hibernation.

 

tame-the-bear-black_400Taming the IT bear – staying in control of the organisation’s IT – is one of the CIO’s biggest challenges, a task made more difficult by increasing demand for digital-first tools from the wider business. It’s about ensuring the right conditions to keep the bear predictable and productive, while exploiting its power to make the changes necessary to keep the organisation competitive.

 

The Vanson Bourne study, involving 1,400 respondents across a variety of industries in the UK, Ireland, France, Sweden and the US, showed the wider business fully appreciates the importance of IT as a powerful tool with 81% considering access to the latest technology vital. Looking into the reasons why, 69% say it makes it easier to do their job, almost half (48%) claim it makes them more productive, while 55% say it makes their job more exciting and 63% that it has enabled them to develop new skills.

Consequently, digital transformation is now regarded as a priority for 86% of business. However, IT complexity can hinder digital transformation and delivering IT to the business is far from being a walk in the park.

 

Yawning skills gaps appear

Almost half of employees believe their current employer is behind competitors when it comes to adopting the latest digital tools and technologies. Indeed, over half (52%) of IT decision-makers (ITDMs) fear that they are not transforming digitally at the speed their management team expects. This is largely due to an inability to integrate new applications into existing technologies. Overall, 40% of respondents cite this as a missing skill, a figure that rises to 50% for the UK.

Questioned about the biggest technical skills gap hindering digital transformation, this was identified as the main problem by 39% of US respondents and 39% in France. However, in Ireland, maintaining effective security across the different IT systems was the biggest issue for 41%. The problems appear to run deeper in Sweden where 39% cited the lack of an existing solid IT infrastructure on which to build a digital transformation.

As for the biggest soft skills gaps, while communicating the benefits of digital transformation to senior leadership was highlighted in the US (39%), Ireland (57%) and Sweden (46%), understanding the business benefits of digital communication appears to be a more fundamental issue in the UK (46%) and France (40%).

 

Lack of investment continues to be a bugbear

Almost a quarter of respondents (24%) believe they are not getting the financial investment required from the wider team to effect digital transformation. This is wreaking havoc on the business with potential impacts including:

  • Staff retention suffers – Nearly a quarter of employees (23%) questioned have actually left a place of employment as it did not enable digital working practices – a figure that rises to 32% in the US
  • Productivity plummets – 84% feel digital transformation helps improve productivity
  • Loss of competitive advantage – The same proportion cite digital transformation as being critical to remain competitive in their industry

To varying degrees, the wider business looks to the IT department to step up, ‘Tame the Bear’ and help drive this change. IT are regarded as being the strongest driver by 55% overall with significant regional variations. In the US this rises to 82% while in Ireland and Sweden, it drops to just 38% and 25% respectively. Unsurprisingly, 81% of IT decision-makers said they were looking to recruit new employees with the right digital skills to achieve transformation goals.

Although 26% of ITDMs see the CTO as key in supporting the IT department’s drive for digital transformation, the CDO (19%) and CEO (13%) are also seen as important figures. Many (68%) also recognised the value of bringing in additional external support to give the digital transformation process teeth.

We will be focusing on various aspects of this study over the coming months. View the full research findings and developments here.

Part II: It’s me or the IT!

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Poor tech leads to employees voting with their feet

Research commissioned by Sungard Availability Services has revealed that organisations risk losing their talent due to perceived shortcomings in digital working practices. The survey, conducted by specialist IT research agency Vanson Bourne, questioned 700 IT decision-makers and 1,400 office workers from businesses in Ireland, the UK, France, Sweden and the US.

It found that in both the UK and Ireland one in five employees leave their jobs when their technology expectations are not met. And over a third (40%) of Ireland employees that stay say they would be tempted to leave their current organisation if offered a role at a more digitally progressive company. This is because having access to the latest digital tools is considered important or very important by 82% of Ireland’s office workers, with 36% admitting they would be embarrassed to work in an organisation without them. In fact, over a fifth (21%) of Irish workers said they had already left jobs because they did not enable digital working practices.

www.TameTheBear.com

Tame the bear video_capture

 

 

Investment and upskilling

However, the findings suggest investment in digital tools is apparently only half the battle. Organisations must also invest in training their employees, ensuring they have the skills and knowledge to get the best possible use out of the new digital tools provided.

This is a problem for Ireland’s employees. While they recognise the need for the digital tools – with over a third (39%) claiming they helped them become more productive – a distinct split emerges. Nearly three-quarters (74%) of Ireland respondents say the tools make their jobs easier while just under one-fifth (19%) claim technology makes their jobs more difficult.

This may be a reflection of the fact the technology may have been introduced without proper training as, worryingly, almost a quarter (24%) say they do not understand how to use the new digital tools their employer has provided. While 42% were confident they could make the most of the tools available, a similar proportion (43%) believe they are only usually able to make the most of the tools provided although their skills could still be improved.

Obstacles to be overcome

82% of employees say digital transformation is important to their organisation but 43% of Ireland respondents say progress towards achieving it is not as fast as management wants. When questioned about who has responsibility for driving through digital transformation, this was overwhelmingly laid at the feet of the IT department by almost three-quarters (73%) of Ireland respondents. Interestingly, despite 21% believing digital transformation to be the responsibility of general employees there is an overall belief that, regardless of which job-title should take the lion’s share of effecting digital transformation, 79% of workers place strategic responsibility squarely at the feet of their entire board!

Having the right training (52%) and technical skills (48%) and were cited as the two biggest challenges hindering progress, with a quarter of Ireland’s employees questioned criticising the quality and relevance of the training they had been given. Unsurprising given the concerns expressed previously.  But why does situation exist at all?

Well it may be due to the perception that, according to almost a third (32%) of Ireland respondents, senior management assume employees already have the right skills and knowledge to use the digital tools available to them. However, almost a fifth of employees (18%) claimed digital tools changed too often to keep up with the training requirements. So for a variety of reasons, the survey suggests a substantial proportion of employees are being failed by their employers in terms of training needs.

Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President, global sales & customer services management at Sungard Availability Services, commented, “Digital tools – from mobile working solutions through to cloud-based collaboration applications – can be a game-changer for businesses and a powerful tool for growth. Happily, our research shows employees already understand the importance of digital transformation and are keen to learn more around the tools and techniques they will need in this new era of business.”

He stressed, “This is an important moment for the IT department, the CIO and their peers to further demonstrate the value they can offer. Not just in delivering digital tools but also in offering the guidance and knowledge to help employees gain the most value from them. By doing so, they really will have a true digital transformation on their hands and create a business ready to reap the rewards.”

 

IT transformation helps Menzies’ global expansion plans take flight

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Dynamic logistics and aviation business John Menzies plc needed a flexible, scalable IT infrastructure to support its ambitious growth plans. And it needed it quickly!

As a company that services 300 airlines, has customers at 140 airports worldwide, handles 1.2 million aircraft movements and 1.7 million tons of cargo a year, bulk delivers 5 million newspapers daily and supplies almost half the UK’s retailers, Menzies understands the importance of meeting deadlines. Failure at any point would mean stores have empty shelves, newspapers don’t get delivered and planes don’t take off on time.

As part of its change management strategy, John Menzies plc is undergoing a 12-month IT transformation programme under which its IT and networks infrastructure has been outsourced to Sungard AS and many services transformed into cloud-based solutions. This will allow Menzies to focus on its core business – not only freeing up time, capital and resources, but also giving Menzies the worldwide capabilities, reliability and agility the business demands.

Following a thorough procurement process to find a supplier they could rely on, Menzies selected Sungard Availability Services. “One of Sungard AS’ strengths is their pragmatic approach. They’re willing to be flexible and compromise. We found there’s the sense of a joint effort – “How are we going to do this?” explains Mark Reid, CIO, John Menzies plc. “The relationship gives us the best of both worlds – the infrastructure, scale and experience of a big company but not the inflexibility and rigidity that often comes with it.”

menzies loading_400“Menzies is a genuinely 24/7 business. For us, it’s not just a few computers data processing overnight but operations all around the world going at full tilt.

When everyone is sleeping here in the UK, our teams in Australia and the West Coast of America are still working and the UK distribution business is at its peak. There’s no such thing as a maintenance window.”

 

Menzies’ strategy was to consolidate its four existing data centres into two resilient Sungard AS data centres from which Sungard AS would provide a Platform as a Service (PaaS) solution. However, before the IT transformation process could even start, Menzies and Sungard AS faced a more immediate concern. Menzies’ contract for its Cumbernauld data centre was scheduled to expire in a matter of weeks. This forced the two companies to perform the migration from the existing site to Sungard AS – a ‘lift and shift’ operation due to the time constraints – in just eight weeks!

In fact, the timeframe was so tight that contracts had not been signed before the move date. “This was a real example of mutual trust before either company had signed on the dotted line,” recalls Mark Reid, CIO for John Menzies. “We had to take a leap of faith that Sungard AS would be able to deliver what they promised while Sungard AS allowed us to use their facilities with no guarantee of a contract coming out of it.”

Ultimately, the migration was executed flawlessly and on time. But there was to be no breathing space!

No sooner had the first data centre been migrated than a business opportunity presented itself that required the space currently used by Menzies’ Heathrow data centre. Paul Stow, Chief Architect for John Menzies, was asked to perform a second successful migration to another Sungard AS data centre within three months, a challenge he likens to “changing the engine on a 747 mid-Atlantic without anyone noticing.”

 

Transformation of Menzies’ IT infrastructure – at speed!

menzies distribution van_400There were many factors in Menzies’ decision to outsource its IT infrastructure to Sungard Availability Services in the ten-year, multi-million pound deal. Steve Rick, Senior Vice President of John Menzies, who is leading the wider transformation, explains.

“We selected the Sungard AS solution because it provides us with the flexibility to scale our IT to meet business demand, without requiring capital investment or a commitment to server or storage volumes.

“Leveraging their investment in data centres, IT infrastructure and service management provides economies of scale and operation which translates into lower running costs for Menzies’ IT infrastructure. Sungard AS was also able to meet specific challenges around the global operation of the Menzies business and existing technology and supplier arrangements.”

The next stage is to migrate Menzies’ two remaining data centres, in Bracknell and Edinburgh, to the Sungard AS managed cloud by 31 October 2016. This will mean the two companies, working together, will have migrated four data centres and transformed Menzies’ IT infrastructure in just 12 months – a feat that would normally take several years!

 

A flexible, scalable IT environment that meets business needs cost-effectively

It is early days in the IT transformation process but Mark Reid expects to reap many benefits. These include increased flexibility from a technology perspective to respond to change by “turning capacity up and down as the business evolves” but also from a financial viewpoint. “At the moment if I initiate a new project and invest in additional servers and terabytes of storage I am committed to it for years. With our cloud model I can just turn it up with business demand and turn it off again when not needed.”

Moving to a consumption-based model will allow Menzies to enjoy all the benefits – scalability, agility and flexibility – a cloud environment brings. Paul Stow notes, “Sungard AS has enabled us to move from four expensive data centres with all the associated hardware to a model where we simply pay for the services we need. And they’re saving us money too!”

From a test and development point of view, he is looking forward to “being able to create test environments, use them for a day, a week or as long as they’re needed, then turn them off and bring them back when needed.”


Menzies video testimonial

Watch a video interview with Paul Stow, Chief Architect at John Menzies plc

With IT being mission-critical to every aspect of its operations, Menzies is enjoying the peace of mind that comes from having SLA-backed uptime of 99.95%.

Commenting on the relationship that is developing between Menzies and Sungard AS, Steve Rick remarks, “I hesitate to use the word ‘partnership’ as it has become so overused but both the length and depth of our agreement mean that there is a level of commitment there to making the relationship work on both sides. After all, ten years is longer than some marriages!”

 

You can read the full case study and watch a video interview with Paul Stow, Chief Architect at John Menzies plc, here

Hybrid IT – it’s the new normal

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In an ideal world, most IT managers would undoubtedly like to start with a blank slate when designing their IT infrastructure. But this is not an ideal world and few have that luxury.

Instead, you bear with the complexities of ageing architectures, siloed hard-to-integrate systems, legacy applications, multiple providers, and uncertainties about security and where to run applications and workloads for the best cost control and business outcomes.

While hybrid IT makes the path to change more complicated, the journey is nonetheless critical: In a world where change is a constant, business agility is not a ‘nice to have’ but an essential. You need to be able to respond to market shifts and emerging opportunities in front of you, not in the rear view mirror.

In a global and digital economy, your infrastructure must adapt to business that never stops. And, since customer loyalty can change with the click of a button, you need the flexibility to swiftly launch products and services to differentiate your business. This takes incredibly responsive, instantly available and infinitely scalable IT resources to make it all happen.

This is your new normal – a highly complex IT ecosystem that makes traditional IT infrastructure look like a dusty museum relic, transforming how you need to provide, manage, grow and pay for IT services. But making that transition when your IT team is already too busy making the everyday of business happen — whether that means filling orders, flying planes or comforting patients — just adds to the pressure.

Whether you’re challenged with controlling costs, balancing a mix of applications and legacy environments, managing performance or scaling and expanding into new markets, Sungard AS can help you nimbly navigate the twists and turns of IT transformation to meet the business’ expectations.

Hybrid is the new normal brochure cover_200Download our ‘Hybrid is the new normal’ brochure to find out about the five-step plan we follow to bring about change.

For further information speak to your account manager or email avail@sungardas.com.

 

Related article: You can see how we’re helping John Menzies through a 12 month IT transformation programme as part of their change management strategy, here.

Gartner again positions Sungard Availability Services as a Leader in its DRaaS Magic Quadrant

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We’re delighted to report that Gartner has placed Sungard Availability Services in the ‘Leaders’ position of its Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service[1] (DRaaS) for the second year in a row.

DRaaS_MQ_2016_400

“We understand that our business really is our customers’ business, and we take the availability and recoverability of customers’ business applications and infrastructure as seriously as they do. Time and again, customers choose us for our risk-based framework and ability to help map technical efforts to business priorities,” said Jack Dziak, executive vice president, global products, for Sungard AS.

He continued, “Today’s enterprise needs a partner that can provide more than simple DRaaS capabilities. The demands of the always-on business require a full IT availability solution that integrates into development, test, and production environments and orchestrates customer-owned and third-party infrastructures. Decades of disaster recovery experience and proven capabilities allow us to deliver on our promise of providing fully-recoverable production services. It is an honor to again be recognised by Gartner as a leader in Disaster Recovery as a Service.”

Gartner evaluated 20 Disaster Recovery as a Service (DRaaS) providers for this year’s Magic Quadrant. Service providers were evaluated against their ability to execute – to provide a DRaaS offering that meets customer requirements with a high level of service and customer support – and a completeness of vision – not just on the provider’s assessment of the current market but also on its anticipation of expected market and technology changes.

According to the analyst, firms in the Leaders quadrant have “significant industry experience in supporting data center and managed operations services, a strong provider-managed (as opposed to self-service) approach to DRaaS management, and a professional services organisation that provides a complete solution to customers for recovery planning, exercising and management.”

With more than 35 years delivering recovery solutions that apply to all facets of customers’ production environments, Sungard AS understands that IT must deliver business results and take a holistic approach to achieve business resilience. Our comprehensive DRaaS solutions are designed to be flexible enough to work with complex, hybrid production and recovery environments, and to scale up and down driven by specific business requirements, addressing a full range of recovery time and recovery point objectives (RTOs/RPOs).

To view a copy of the 2016 Gartner Inc Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service, visit our website.

[1]   Gartner “Magic Quadrant for Disaster Recovery as a Service” by John P Morency, Christine Tenneson, and Ron Blair, June 16, 2016.

Gartner designates Sungard AS a BCM Software Leader in Magic Quadrant

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Sungard Availability Services’ AssuranceCM has been positioned in the Leader position of Gartner’s Magic Quadrant* for Business Continuity Management Planning Software Worldwide for the second year in a row.

FIGURE 1.
MAGIC QUADRANT FOR BUSINESS CONTINUITY MANAGEMENT PLANNING SOFTWARE, WORLDWIDE
Source: Gartner (July 2016)

gartner-magic-quad-bcmps-2016Notably, we were also positioned above the 14 other providers evaluated for our ‘ability to execute’ – providing BCMP software that meets customer requirements with a high level of service and customer support. Other criteria included completeness of vision based not just on the provider’s assessment of the current market but also its anticipation of expected market and technology changes.

This is the second time this year Sungard AS has been awarded a top-rated position in one of Gartner’s authoritative global Magic Quadrants.

Commenting on this latest accolade, Louis Grosskopf, General Manager for Business Continuity Software for Sungard AS, said, “Our AssuranceCM BCM software is Facebook-easy, bringing more employees into the process. That’s one reason why more than 600 businesses have chosen AssuranceCM and why, when managing the risks of cyber threats and other business disruptions, they’ll be ready to act immediately.”

To view a copy of the July 2016 Gartner, Inc. Magic Quadrant for Business Continuity Management Planning Software, Worldwide visit: Who’s in the Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Continuity Management Planning Software

 

*About the Magic Quadrant

Gartner does not endorse any vendor, product or service depicted in its research publications, and does not advise technology users to select only those vendors with the highest ratings or other designation. Gartner research publications consist of the opinions of Gartner’s research organization and should not be construed as statements of fact. Gartner disclaims all warranties, expressed or implied, with respect to this research, including any warranties of merchantability or fitness for a particular purpose.

Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Continuity Management Planning Software by Roberta J. Witty, John P Morency, July 11, 2016

New managed cloud recovery service for AWS brings peace of mind

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If you run some or all of your applications in the Amazon Web Services (AWS) cloud, you might worry about the impact of an unexpected outage on your business. We know that while AWS has all the necessary infrastructure, orchestration and scalability to support a recovery solution, without help navigating the complexities of a recovery environment in the AWS cloud it can be a daunting prospect. Equally, many customers who recover external environments into the AWS cloud would also find this a challenge.

Recognising this, Sungard Availability Services has developed a managed cloud recovery service specifically for AWS. This lives on AWS infrastructure so there is no hardware to buy or lease, no lower limit on the amount of data under protection and you pay only for recovery computing resources used at time of test or disaster.

Managed Cloud Recovery for AWS supports data replication of virtual machines along with support for replication of your Oracle and MSSQL databases. The flexibility of the AWS platform allows additional servers to be spun up in minutes as required, getting you back to ‘business as usual’ more quickly.

In fact, with our AWS-certified architecture and skilled AWS specialists we offer an SLA-backed guarantee to get your business back online in the AWS cloud in as little as two hours of an interruption.

We offer customers a choice of two ways to connect – either over public networks or via a dedicated communications link depending on security and bandwidth requirements. For those customers who require it, we can support their private connections in AWS to give greater security and more consistent performance.

In our experience, many customers also need expert help with their disaster recovery planning so making our AWS offering even better value, we offer business continuity consultancy too.
We believe the combination of AWS – one of the leading cloud computing platforms in the world – coupled with Sungard Availability Services’ recovery expertise will prove an attractive proposition.

Cloud Based Recovery for AWS is just one of our many cloud-based recovery services that enable us to make good our promise that whatever your infrastructure – physical, virtual or hybrid – we can work with it.

If you’d like more information on this or any of our other recovery services, contact your account manager or email avail@sungardas.com.

Discovery & dependency mapping service reveals true picture of IT environment

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In our experience, many clients find their production IT department is something of a black hole. Knowing what applications the business uses and which servers and software they depend on should, in theory, be straightforward but, as IT managers will be only too painfully aware, it rarely is.

With today’s complex IT infrastructures, getting to grips with the ever-multiplying number of applications on which different parts of the business rely, let alone working out the numerous dependencies, is a considerable undertaking.

It is not hard to see why such a knowledge gap can lead to problems when it comes to successful testing and recovery, IT virtualisation, IT audits, server consolidation, cost control and migrations.

Sungard Availability Services aims to remove these pain points with our new Discovery & Dependency Mapping (DDM) service.


How it works

The service uses an agentless probe(s), deployed at the customer’s site, to scan the IT environment within scope and populates the discovered information into Sungard AS’ centrally managed Configuration Management Database (CMDB). We then analyse the discovery data, map application to infrastructure dependencies and collaboratively map business processes to applications before providing reports on the findings to the customer. This enables customers to make informed decisions on production and recovery services based on facts rather than a best guess.

Of course, production environments change all the time – just one change per month for each system can add up to more than 10,000 configuration changes a year. DDM’s ongoing service provides customers with monthly change reports to ensure they always have an up-to-date picture of their IT environment.

While the Discovery & Dependency Mapping process is an integral part of Sungard AS’ Managed Recovery Programme (MRP), DDM will be available as a standalone service to all customers.


Benefits

    • Accurate snapshot of the IT environment to inform strategy and investment decisions
    • Eliminates dependence on ‘tribal knowledge’ and spreadsheets that are difficult to consolidate and keep current
    • Scoped discovery allows customer to control what information they need to know to ensure relevance
    • Enables production and recovery solutions to be right-sized so customers pay only for what they need
    • No capital expenditure, licences or specialist skills required in-house to implement
    • Time-to-Value deployment with pre-configured server setup at Sungard AS and lightweight agentless probe on customer premises so customers reap the benefits more quickly
    • Gives customers the knowledge they need to effectively recover, migrate, consolidate or test specific applications
    • Monthly Change Reports to keep customers abreast of unplanned production changes

 

If you’d like to discuss how Discovery & Dependency Mapping could benefit your organisation call us on 0808 223 0274 or email avail@sungardas.com

Pay up or kiss your files goodbye

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We’ve talked a lot in the past about DDoS attacks as a common form of cyberattack but there’s also a growing threat of ransomware attacks, which now account for around a quarter of UK cyber threats1. At peak spamming times there are about 200,000 messages an hour carrying ransomware attachments2.

 

Ransomware either blocks access to the computer or device (‘locker ransomware’) or encrypts files and data on the system (‘crypto ransomware’). But both types of malware are designed to extort money from their victims in return for a decryption key.

Companies that fail to pay up find access to their files remain blocked with a devastating effect on their ability to operate. And even those that decide they have no alternative but to pay must ask themselves whether they can trust the integrity of their data once files have been compromised in this way.

Ransomware is not a new phenomenon, first appearing in a fairly crude form as early as 1986 as the AIDS Trojan. Tactics steadily evolved over the years to become a serious threat about ten years ago.

Today, ransomware is a global threat touching all corners of the world, although certain countries tend to be affected more than others. According to the latest report3 from security firm Symantec, the three countries most affected are the US, Japan and, in third place, the UK. The study reports the number of crypto ransomware families increased by 250% between 2013 and 2014. The authors note, “Never before in the history of human kind have people across the world been subjected to extortion on a massive scale as they are today.”

 

“Never before in the history of human kind have people across the world been subjected to extortion on a massive scale as they are today.”

 

You may be familiar with some of the more common malware – BitLocker and Locky, which deny access to the computer or device, and CryptoLocker, CryptoWall or Reveton, crypto ransomware that prevents access to data. While typically the sum requested is $300 per computer, the going rate for Locky was three bitcoins (around £885) per infected machine in March of this year4 and with the huge volumes involved, this particular form of malware is big business.

In March 2014, Symantec found that Trojan. Cryptowall earned at least US$34,000 in its first month of operations. A further study by other information security researchers found that by August 2014, Cryptowall had earned more than US$1.1 million. In June 2015, data from the FBI’s Internet Crime Complaint Center (IC3) showed that between April 2014 and June 2015, it had received 992 Cryptowall-related complaints. The victims were a mix of end users and businesses, and the resulting losses from these cases amounted to more than $18m.

 

How it works

There are many routes for the malware to reach a computer. Spam email is a primary tactic. As users became more savvy about opening unsolicited email attachments or clicking on unknown links, hackers adapted their tactics to deliver ransomware through ‘spear phishing’ emails targeting specific individuals. And as email systems got better at filtering spam they evolved still further bypassing the need for individuals to click on a link altogether by seeding legitimate websites with malicious code on poorly protected end user computers.

Other routes include malvertisements, social engineering, SMS messages, data breaches, exploit kits, downloaders and bot infection. Mimicking the marketing strategy of legitimate companies, some cybercriminals even offer affiliate schemes – effectively ‘Ransomware as a Service’ where the buyer is responsible for distributing the malware and the developer takes a cut.

Once the infection is present in the system the malware begins encrypting files and folders on local drives, any attached drives, backup drives and, potentially, other computers on the same network. Users and organisations will usually be unaware they have been infected until they can no longer access their data, or see computer messages informing them of the attack and requesting payment.

Bitcoins were originally the favoured method of payment due to the anonymity the virtual currency affords but Sungard Availability Services has seen requests for wire transfers, online payment vouchers (such as a UKash or Paysafecard) and, recently, even Amazon and iTunes gift cards.

 

To pay or not to pay?

The FBI has reversed its advice issued in October last year5 and no longer recommends paying a ransom in response to a ransomware attack. “Paying a ransom doesn’t guarantee an organisation that it will get its data back—we’ve seen cases where organisations never got a decryption key after having paid the ransom,” says FBI cyber division assistant director James Trainor. “Paying a ransom not only emboldens current cyber criminals to target more organisations, it also offers an incentive for other criminals to get involved in this type of illegal activity. And finally, by paying a ransom, an organisation might inadvertently be funding other illicit activity associated with criminals.”

Perhaps surprisingly, in the majority of cases victims do recover their data or use of their computer. This is less down to altruism on the part of the cybercriminal and more because it makes good business sense. They recognise that without the reputation that they can be trusted to decrypt files once the ransom has been paid no new victims would pay a ransom demand. To build ‘trust’, some ransomware – CTBLocker is one example – actually includes the option to ‘try before you buy’, allowing the user to have five randomly chosen files decrypted as proof of the attacker’s ability and willingness to do so once a ransom is paid.

Although ransomware is currently hitting the news headlines, it is only one of many ways hackers can cripple a company’s IT systems.

As April’s leak of 11.5 million files from the Panama-based offshore law firm Mossack Fonseca demonstrated, sometimes a simple hack on an email server can wreak untold damage. In what is the biggest data leak in recent history – bigger even than WikiLeaks in 2010 or the NSA files in 2013 – 2.6TB of confidential data was released relating to some of the most powerful people in the world.

The ‘Panama Papers’ data leak (as it is commonly known) revealed how the rich and famous hide their money offshore, resulting in lurid news headlines. Twelve national leaders are among 143 politicians around the world known to have exploited offshore tax havens. While there is no suggestion that those named have done anything illegal, the revelations have proved intensely embarrassing for many.

 

What you can do about the ransomware threat

Ransomware is the kind of threat where effective business continuity management comes into its own as organisations that regularly back up their data can avoid paying a ransom at all, by simply restoring the infected system to a state prior to the infection.

With any kind of cyberattack, cybercriminals will typically go for the easiest targets first so efforts should focus on prevention. Analysing the attacks directed at Sungard AS customers and picked up by our Intrusion Detection System, we have seen OpenSSL, Heartbleed, Magento SQL Injection and Apache Struts exploit attempts along with the Bandook Trojan infection and Webshell Backdoor code.

 

Here are some proactive measures all organisations should follow to guard against any form of cyberattack:

 

  • Implement a Defence in Depth model. This is one in which you don’t place your faith in any single technique or technology but combine a number of security best practices to eliminate information security vulnerabilities. Use SIEM software to collate information from numerous sources to provide real-time analysis of security alerts generated by network hardware and applications.
  • Network edge security to eliminate threats at the perimeter, the best location to eliminate the vast majority of attacks.
  • Safeguard VPN access with regular patch and anti-virus management.
  • Adopt a virtual desktop environment for remote devices.
  • Block users from installing unauthorised applications and ensure applications are managed centrally.
  • Insist on strong password controls for users but, importantly, for System Admin too. No users should be assigned administrative access unless absolutely necessary and, for this reason, do not use the same Admin passwords on servers as for users, a common mistake. Escalation of privileges is one of the first steps to compromise a network so strictly limit access.
  • Adhere to basic security doctrines such as allowing users to see only the information necessary to do their jobs.
  • Disable macro scripts from office files transmitted over email.
  • Implement proxy internet access, mail relays and mail scrubbing to form a barrier between an internal network and the open internet. Proxy servers intercept requests for internet pages from users within the network and perform various chores to protect the network, improving performance and enforcing company web use policies.
  • Segregate networks through the use of a Demilitarised Zone (DMZ) that separates your internal local area network (LAN) from other untrusted networks, usually the internet. External-facing servers, resources and services are located in the DMZ so they are accessible from the internet but the rest of the internal LAN remains unreachable. This provides an additional layer of security to the LAN as it restricts the ability of hackers to directly access internal servers and data via the Internet.
  • Invest in Intrusion Detection and Prevention software, both host and network-based, to monitor the network for malicious activities or policy violations and act on the findings.
  • Install robust firewalls including Web Application Firewalls and monitor these to ensure they stay current and able to withstand the latest threats.
  • Conduct regular vulnerability scans.
  • Backup regularly and verify the integrity of those backups. Ensure they are not connected to the computers and networks they are backing up. Ideally, data should be held securely in a resilient, geographically separate location.
  • Penetration testing to assess the effectiveness of your defences.
  • Draw up an Information Security Policy and ensure it is rigorously adhered to.
  • Create an education programme for users explaining the risks posed by inadequate defences, the threats faced by organisations and their responsibility to prevent breaches.
  • Develop a practical incident response plan and business continuity management plan to guide the organisation’s response in the event of a cyberattack and minimise the effects of disruption. Crisis-driven decisions worsen the impact so prepare for a potential incident in advance and put plans to the test. Remember to think beyond technology and address the people and process aspects of your plan. For example:
    – Specify who is responsible for each step of the response, whether it’s someone in-house or a third party.
    – If your business involves e-commerce, have a ‘Plan B’ in place to keep orders flowing.
    – Plan your communication strategy – who needs to be notified and when.

 

If you are interested in finding out more about Information Security Consulting from one of Sungard Availability Services’ security experts, speak to your account manager, call us on 0800 143 413 or email avail@sungardas.com

 

1Eset: LiveGrid telemetry – April 2016

2Trustwave blogpost – Rodel Mendrez

3Symantec: ‘The evolution of ransomware’ – 6 August 2015

4www.bbc.co.uk/news/technology-35773058 – 10 March 2016

5https://securityledger.com/2015/10/fbis-advice-on-cryptolocker-just-pay-the-ransom/

Popular channel partner programme extended to Europe

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You may have read in the trade press that Sungard Availability Services is extending its successful Channel Partner Programme, running in the US and Canada since 2009, to the UK, Ireland, France, Belgium, Luxemburg and Sweden. Demonstrating its popularity, the existing programme has enjoyed consecutive year-on-year double digit growth and been repeatedly recognised with partner and industry awards.

The flexible programme offers a collaborative “sell with” field organisation with focused sales enablement, go-to-market support, exclusive lead registration and competitive compensation for partners who range from boutique consultancies to cloud hosting multinationals. As part of our joint selling model, we work with partners to provide complete solutions to their joint customers, meeting their evolving needs for as-a-service delivery models and Opex financing.

Jean-Philippe Sohier, senior vice president, European sales, Sungard AS commented: “Our leading position in the industry attracts channel partners seeking to differentiate themselves from their competition by combining value-added fully recoverable production services to their existing service capabilities.”

Partners benefit from a full portfolio of recovery, business continuity, managed IT and cloud services to satisfy any customer IT requirement. Other programme benefits include access to the established Sungard AS ecosystem of strategic technology partners – including Cisco, EMC, NetApp – and application partners such as SAP and Oracle. As an example, Cisco Partners can satisfy new Cisco Hybrid IT requirements by selling one or more of three Cisco-Powered Cloud Services from Sungard AS. SAP and Oracle integrators can leverage the in-market support plan from Sungard AS to help customers run and manage these ERP systems in the cloud.

Commenting on the new Sungard AS Channel Partner programme, Gary Coburn, CEO of channel partner Island Networks said: “Island Networks and Sungard AS have together built a very strong partnership over the last couple of years, both in Ireland and in the US. We have been very impressed with the commitment Sungard AS has shown to our partnership and also with their win/win approach right from the start. Island Networks offers world-class cloud infrastructure solutions to our customers and our partnership with Sungard AS gives us an important differentiator in the market.”

In addition to Island Networks (Ireland), we have signed an agreement with Ireland’s largest distributor, Exertis, to reach and serve the Irish channel.

“The expanded programme will replicate what we’ve successfully built in North America,” Sohier continued. “Channel partners throughout Europe may enrol into our Partner Program and leverage our proven, cost-effective sales enablement and go-to-market resources. Highly successful partners, those that have invested to represent Sungard AS and that are active in the market, can leverage the tools we’ve built and gain added benefit from additional engineering support or executive engagement.”

Find out more
Join SVP Global Channel Sales and Programs, Carmen Sorice as he discusses the Sungard AS global channel strategy. Learn about new training, enablement and marketing initiatives that will help you grow your business. Watch the video here

Prospective partners can find more information on the Partner Programme in Europe and register online at www.sungardas.co.uk/partners

New webinar promotes partner programme

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Sungard Availability Services has added a new topic to our popular programme of webinars that explains the benefits of joining our award-winning channel partner programme, which has recently been expanded into Europe.

The successful, long-established programme enables partners to offer our cloud, cloud recovery and managed application solutions as well as a host of hybrid IT offerings to their customers and build an ongoing revenue stream. We offer a choice of partner tracks to suit your particular business:

  • Solution Partners integrate Sungard Availability Services offerings, which they can buy at discounted rates, into their existing portfolio of hardware, software and services so that they can offer their customers complete solutions.
  • Associate Partners extend their business by recommending Sungard AS and building relationships with our sales team. In return, they receive a one-off or recurring referral fee.
  • Independent Consultants benefit from our training and insights in order to make informed, vendor-agnostic recommendations to their clients.

Whichever route you choose, you can take advantage of our expertise in managed IT services and business continuity to gain the resources and knowledge you need to transition into the services market. View this webinar to learn more about the programme.

Partner Programme webinar_Capture_300

 

Help for ISVs on their journey to SaaS

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We understand that getting new services to market fast is critical for Independent Software Vendors (ISVs), so we’ve joined forces with Cisco to give ISVs a shortcut to market by offering infrastructure already certified for many of their markets so they can start earning revenue from their innovations sooner.

We’ve produced an on-demand webinar, presented by Chris Ducker, Senior Director: Global Propositions Strategy, that explains how our technology platforms, partner programmes and support help ISVs move to a Software as a Service model. Over 45 minutes it answers the following questions:

  • How we can help drive growth faster with the support and resources of Cisco partner programmes
  • How our partner ecosystems can open the door to industry experts and support in your field
  • How we ensure business continuity for your application with Sungard AS’s production and recovery expertise coupled with Cisco-powered infrastructure
  • How we use pre-approved Cisco-accredited designs and infrastructure to build the right fast-start platform for your environment

The webinar will share real-life customer examples of how software vendors are successfully deploying Software as a Service today. Click here to watch the webinar at your convenience!

Why it’s good to be social

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If you like to be first with all the Sungard Availability Services news, there’s no quicker way to get in the know than by following us on social media. You’ll be in good company. Find us on LinkedIn, Twitter, Facebook and YouTube where we currently have over 45,000 followers.

James Ward, Digital Marketing Manager for Sungard AS, explains why if you’re not following us online you could be missing out.

“Social media is a two-way street – it’s a platform for conversation, so gives you the opportunity to see the latest and greatest from Sungard AS, pass comment and get first dibs on all of our hot off the press, news, event announcements, and thought leadership content. In the future you’ll even get access to exclusives only available on social.”

Following us couldn’t be easier. Simply visit the profiles below and follow/subscribe, or search for Sungard Availability Services on your chosen platform.
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Divide between IT and the Board hinders resilience

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Following on from our report on IDG Connect research into resilience in our Spring issue, we explore the subject more deeply with a newly published book and video examining the differences of opinion between the IT department and C-suite.

The survey of 100 IT decision makers working for large UK organisations conducted by IDG Connect concludes that to achieve operational resilience, companies must also develop risk management strategies which accommodate the human factors that affect the decision-making of individual employees.

Psychological research suggests that we humans are bad at estimating risk. We pay most attention to current dangers right in front of us rather than those that may or may not surface at a later date, irrespective the magnitude of the disruption these could cause. Furthermore, that attitudes and approaches to risk management vary according to specific job roles.

The contrast is particularly acute when we compare attitudes of those working in the IT department compared to C-Level executives. This is despite the obvious need for close co-operation between the two groups to develop companywide resilience frameworks across the whole organisation rather than fragmented measures for individual business departments.

The study provides a good illustration of this divide at the most basic level: employees’ awareness of the risk management policies that have actually been implemented by their employers.

Looking at the IT department in particular, just 30% of staff reported their organisation had appointed a board level champion for resilience, compared to 53% of Chief Information Officers (CIOs), Chief Technology Officers (CTOs) and Chief Security Officers (CSOs) and 50% of vice presidents, executive vice presidents and senior vice presidents (the VP group).

This disconnect suggests that broader organisational resilience frameworks that extend beyond technology may either be hidden from the IT department, or isolated into separate management frameworks with little or no integration across departmental silos.

Expecting the unexpected

Boardroom executives cannot fail to be aware of IT related risks that can result in customer losses, reputational damage and falling stock prices. The hacking attack suffered by TalkTalk in late 2015 is a case in point, with the UK broadband provider reputedly facing a £60m bill for cleaning up after the cyberattack, comprising £15m lost revenue and £45m in exceptional costs (including a £3m fine from the regulator). Then there is the VW emissions test scandal, which will cost the vehicle manufacturer an estimated $20 to $30bn and, of course, the running sore that is the Deepwater Horizon oil spill, which has already cost BP $60bn in fines and pay-outs.

Failure to adequately prepare for the unexpected means these three businesses have seen around one-third wiped off their capital value – and that’s in addition to the eye-watering cost of putting the situation right.

Often, how an organisation handles a disaster can be more important than the incident itself. Resilience policies based predominantly on prevention and reaction are unlikely to either guard against unanticipated challenges or enable a company to quickly bounce back from any crisis or period of adversity.

The survey shows that C-Level executives (35%) and Vice Presidents (25%) are far more likely to judge their organisation’s approach to anticipated challenges as reactive compared to IT managers and IT directors (10%). Conversely, more of those in the IT department think their organisation has more of a proactive approach (75%) compared to 42% of executives.

This again points to a mutual lack of visibility into data security-based risk management practices implemented by IT departments and their operational equivalents, with little or no communication or integration between them.

And while the number of defeatists judging there is little or anything they can do to meet unexpected challenges amongst IT managers and IT directors is small (5%), that figure jumps to 16 percent for C-level execs and 25 percent for VPs. This indicates senior management may be less willing to spend time and resources preparing for unknown and unexpected outcomes that they do not believe they can properly prepare to meet in the first place.

These differences of opinion may be rooted in the IT department’s involvement in supporting company-wide resilience initiatives. There are tinges of underlying resentment here, with those in senior management feeling that IT is not doing as much as it could to evaluate and implement technology platforms and policies that may help improve levels of resilience.

Silos obstruct companywide resilience

In many cases, different business units will be assigned one particular aspect of risk management, which undermines the design and implementation of a single, company-wide resilience framework.

For instance, we often see Chief Risk or Compliance Management Officers in charge of operational risk management focused on enterprise, third party, policy and business continuity risk management. Yet security risk management comes under the remit of the Chief Information Officer (CIO) who will focus on threat and vulnerability management, continuous monitoring, data protection compliance and incident management, reporting upwards to the board.

Consequently, business operations and IT departments often work in separate silos with each relying on their own data and software. But there are often multiple areas of overlap and duplicate processes which could be effectively streamlined if brought together under a single, companywide risk management framework.

IT departments are less likely to think their employers attach any great importance to breaking down these silos than their colleagues. Around a quarter of the IT managers and IT directors polled (23%) said their employers viewed this as the least important approach to establishing effective resilience, and only 40% felt it was given the highest priority. In contrast, the vast majority of C-Level executives (88%) felt this issue was important to their organisations.

A similar pattern was seen with stress testing plans, which were perceived to be far less of a priority for effective resilience by IT managers and directors compared to boardroom executives and vice presidents.

Board executives were more likely to consider effective leadership on risk management strategies something that needs to be addressed, possibly because they attach more importance to that leadership or are better placed to see where improvements could be made.

IResilience spotlight book_cover_200f you’d like more detail on the research findings watch the video or download the new book here!

Leadership Update with Jack Dziak

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As Executive Vice President of global products, Jack is responsible for the full global portfolio of Sungard Availability Services offerings.

 

Welcome to our Spring edition of AVAIL. I’ll start this issue by talking about the milestones we achieved in 2015, as well as what you can expect to see from Sungard Availability Services (Sungard AS) in the year ahead. I’ll also discuss the three top challenges our customers face today and how they’ve been impacted by the digital revolution.

I hope you enjoy this edition of AVAIL.

Jack Dziak
Executive Vice President, Global Products

 

Q: Sungard Availability Services hit some major milestones in 2015. What were some of the year’s highlights?

Jack: 2015 was a great year for Sungard AS. We hit our stride as a truly global organization, reflected in our roadmap as well as our support, delivery and financial models and standardized pricing structure. So, customers do business with one service provider—Sungard AS—with no variance of how we deliver services, no matter where they’re located.

Financially, we’ve seen significant growth in our cumulative bookings in the underlying solutions that deliver our fully recoverable production services. We saw our revenue profile shift significantly toward virtualized platforms in production and recovery, reflecting a change in the marketplace. By expanding beyond our strong legacy in recovery to provide fully recoverable production environments, more than half of our revenue in 2015 came from production services.

Our revenue growth comes from our position as a provider of hybrid IT, orchestrating all workload production and recovery into a single entity, and analysts are seeing us in that positive light. We placed in the leader’s quadrant both in Gartner’s Disaster Recovery as a Service Magic Quadrant, published April 21, 2015 and IDC’s Disaster Recovery as a Service North America MarketScape, published November 10, 2015. We were also named as a challenger in Gartner’s Data Center Outsourcing and Utility Infrastructure Services North America Magic Quadrant, published July 28, 2015. This speaks volumes about our ability to deliver hybrid IT.

Market opportunities are opening up as more customers embrace the cloud to deliver production services. In addition to our multi-tenant and dedicated cloud infrastructures for production, we provide robust cloud-based recovery capabilities, so our recovery as a service plays in that space. A key product launch was hosted private cloud, specifically for our strategic IT outsourcing partners. Also, as workloads migrate into third-party public clouds, we are positioned as a leading provider of public cloud capabilities to recover workloads in these environments.

Q: What do you see as the biggest challenges for companies today?

Jack: When it comes to a hybrid IT environment, the biggest challenge our customers have is discovery. Many customers are transitioning their IT environments from other service providers or outsourcing models. As they discover the nature of the applications and the business requirements these applications support, it calls for a new strategy for letting the workload define the infrastructure, not the other way around. The more dispersed the environment becomes, the more complex availability, recovery, and continuity becomes.

The good news is that businesses can leverage IT as a strategic asset and deliver results in a way that’s been difficult in the past, when they had to make considerable long-term, fixed-cost capital investments. Now, instead of making those investments, they can focus resources on leveraging the application to drive business results.

Q: How is Sungard AS enabling customers to address these challenges?

Jack: We apply a life-cycle approach, starting in the pre-sales process with a solutions-oriented, consultative session that identifies the business problems they need to solve. This gets translated into an end-to-end solution that is tied at the application layer, which in turn, links directly to the application’s architecture and back into our infrastructure to form an end-to-end delivery capability—all aligned with the desired business outcome.

We also focus on providing integrated solutions, configuring our capabilities with those of our strategic partners into a single solution for the customer. The traditional product-oriented approach no longer works with the complex business requirements customers have today. This differentiates us, because some our largest competitors still come to the market with a one-size-fits-all model.

This focus extends in our services investment strategy, as evidenced by our roadmap around offerings like Discovery and Dependency Mapping, and managed and recovery services on 3rd party cloud providers like Amazon Web Services (AWS).

Q: What else can customers look forward to seeing from Sungard AS as 2016 unfolds?

Jack: The solutions we deliver will support three core customer challenges: Managing a hybrid IT environment, which is the new norm; choosing the best infrastructure to optimize workloads and applications; and creating a highly available, fully recoverable environment for business continuity.

In 2016, to help customers overcome these challenges, we’ll expand our virtualization footprint to deliver a more robust set of capabilities for our cloud production environments. We’ll extend our recovery capabilities to include SAP HANA, AWS, Microsoft Azure, and more virtual environments that support EMC and NetApp and the globalization of these environments. We’ll also expand the scale of hosted private clouds globally, along with a portfolio of services we can deliver into AWS. All this gives customers new ways to address the challenges they face. It also enables us to truly become an orchestrator for, not only the workloads, but the services and the policies that manage the clouds those workloads run in.

Q: Anything more you’d like our customers to know?

Jack: I’d like our customers to know that Sungard Availability Services is uniquely able to support their complex, hybrid IT environments. We look to strike the perfect balance between standardization and tailoring to help our customers meet their business, technical, operational and commercial requirements. We are committed to fostering a real partnership – not just for today but for the long haul. And we do all this by leveraging our deep heritage in resiliency and availability to deliver fully recoverable production environments that keep their critical systems up and running every day.

Keith Tilley: Could you ‘spring’ back?

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Welcome to the spring edition of AVAIL!

You may notice that many of our stories this issue have a common theme: Resilience.

As our feature on the growing threat of DDoS attacks – the number one online threat today – demonstrates, whatever business you are in, building organisational resilience has never been more important.

So we bring you news on the expansion of our Sweden data centre that enables us to offer customers the dual-site solution that’s the cornerstone of any effective resilience strategy. Also, a new recovery service for businesses using the Amazon Web Services cloud gives them the peace of mind their business will be back online within 24 hours. And in welcome news, an authoritative white paper reveals resilience is now a board level issue.

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

Keith Tilley
EVP, global sales and customer services management

New Research: Resilience comes of age

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A new survey conducted on behalf of Sungard Availability Services asserts that resilience is no longer solely an IT issue (if, indeed, it ever was) but demands buy-in from every part of the business.

 

Resilience paper_graph1_1000

The IDG Connect online survey of IT management in companies with 500 or more employees shows resilience now has visibility among the C-suite with almost three-quarters (72%) of those surveyed claiming to have a formal corporate resilience policy. Almost half (45%) go as far as including it in their company vision or mission statement and having a Board level champion (44%).

With risk a perpetual force in every business, although the form it takes constantly evolves, the report states that the way organisations handle risk – the extent to which they are able to foresee the future, adapt positively to change and quickly bounce back from a crisis – will define their long-term success or failure.

The survey found reacting to incidents as and when they occur remains the most common approach to establishing organisational resilience. Just over half (53%) describe their position to unanticipated change as ‘proactive’ with 44% of firms saying they are ‘reactive’. Worryingly, a small proportion of respondents (13%) felt their company’s attitude was ‘defeatist’ when it faced unanticipated change.

While this trend is similar for organisations of all sizes, a higher percentage of smaller (500-999 employees) organisations described their approach as preventive (32%) rather than reactive (29%) or proactive (23%).

The report suggests that it may in fact be better to concede daily disruption of some kind or the other as being a normal state of affairs, and build resilience into each and every business process from the ground up to the point that adaptability and recovery become second nature. Instead of merely having a Plan B, organisations should also have plans C, D and E! However, it acknowledges that such a step change would require bold new thinking by the organisation’s leadership that transcends departmental barriers and self-interest.

Routes to resilience
Physical security was considered the most important factor (67%) in achieving resilience with IT Disaster Recovery and Information Security rated second highest (both 63%). Risk management came in third place (57%), closely followed by business continuity (54%) and crisis management (53%).

 

Resilience paper_graph2

 

The survey quantified various resilience indicators, all of which encouragingly received high maturity ratings (over 80%) although the report’s authors note ‘there remains room for improvement in most cases’. Leadership and Unity of Purpose were the most mature resilience indicators ahead of situational awareness, innovation and creativity, a proactive posture and internal resources.

Strategic planning was felt to be the most effective way to build organisational resilience. However, all approaches to establishing effective resilience were rated ‘important’ or ‘very important’ by respondents, and the relative differences between the top-rated approaches were marginal.

Considering the role played by IT in organisations, understanding and managing risk (53%) followed by flexible working (49%) were cited as the top functions driven by advances in technology. IT teams were not thought to be heavily involved in relationship management, while over a third (37%) felt IT involvement is also absent or limited when it comes to horizon scanning.

Overcoming challenges
When it comes to overcoming obstacles to resilience, effective leadership was overwhelmingly considered the most important factor with 39% of respondents citing it as ‘extremely significant’. IT infrastructure (36%) and compliance (30%) were accorded the same degree of importance. More than a third felt staff education, motivation and preparedness (27%) were significant factors but support from external business partners less so at just 16%.

 

Resilience paper_graph3

 

Here, there were marked differences between organisations of differing sizes. The largest companies felt that IT infrastructure is their biggest challenge, indicating that current technology platforms may be holding them back in some cases. This category of firms inevitably attribute greater importance to compliance, perhaps unsurprising given that the scale of their operations and revenue makes them most likely to be governed by national regulation and have internal guidelines for resilience to which they are expected to adhere.

In conclusion
The standout finding of the research is what looks like a consistent mismatch between the IT department and other executives when it comes to judging current standards of corporate resilience within their organisations.

Equally, even where measures to address physical security, IT disaster recovery, information security, crisis and risk management, and business continuity have been widely adopted, they often operate in isolation and are not well integrated within the business.

Other areas with room for improvement include establishing an effective leadership team, meeting compliance requirements and training and motivating staff to be better prepared to meet challenges. The report concludes that the key to success may depend on uniting physical security, risk/crisis management and business continuity under a single framework.

Ultimately, resilience hinges on making sure everybody involved – regardless of the job they do – understands what the business is trying to achieve and is happy to work together in implementing a uniform approach.


To see the full picture download the white paper here.

 

A managed cloud recovery service for AWS

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If you run some or all of your production applications in a cloud deployment model, you may worry about how an unexpected outage may impact on your business.

Amazon Web Services (AWS) offers the infrastructure, orchestration and scalability to run a recovery solution, but without support, navigating your way around the AWS cloud environment can be a daunting prospect. However, with our latest managed recovery solution coming in Q2, you need worry no more!

Sungard Availability Services’ Recovery for AWS offering lives on AWS infrastructure so there is no hardware to buy or lease, no lower limit on the amount of data under protection and you pay only for recovery computing resources used at time of test or disaster.

Most importantly, you have peace of mind that our skilled, specially trained AWS specialists will quickly get your business back online in AWS following an interruption.

We believe the combination of the leading cloud computing platform in the world–AWS–coupled with Sungard AS’ proven recovery expertise provides an attractive proposition.

Recovery for AWS is just one of our many cloud-based recovery services that enable us to make good on our promise that whatever your infrastructure–physical, virtual or hybrid–we can work with it.

If you would like more information on this, or any of our other recovery services, contact your account manager or email avail@sungardas.com.

Cloud-based recovery goes mainstream – yet majority still exposed to risk

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A vast number of organisations are turning to cloud-based recovery solutions, with this route emerging as the fastest-growing form of recovery expanding at a rate of 30% annually1. Yet there is evidence to suggest the majority are still leaving themselves exposed to the risk of considerable data loss.

The Disaster Recovery Council’s 2014 annual bench marking report reveals 75% of all businesses are failing to prepare adequately for disaster recovery. One in four organisations had lost data for one day or more, and 20% of all organisations reported the cost of losing data ranged from a relatively trifling $50k up to $5m.

Any high profile, poorly managed incident – from technology failure to a PR scandal – can cause a company’s share price to plummet knocking millions off its value – as we have seen with Carphone Warehouse, BP after the Deepwater Horizon disaster and, most recently, Volkswagen.

With Gartner calculating that spend on disaster recovery products amounts to some $19bn a year globally, it is clear organisations are spending record amounts to mitigate the risk without achieving the outcomes they seek. This suggests firms are “throwing money at the problem” rather than investing their precious resources wisely.

In our experience, a lack of planning, resources and time to test are the main causes of DR failure. As an organisation changes over time, it inevitably creates a complex hybrid IT infrastructure comprising legacy IT, physical and virtual machines, hosted applications and cloud computing environments. This is where many cloud-based recovery solutions fall down as they are typically focused on a narrow range of environments rather than the multi-platform environments that are more typical of production IT systems.

This is exacerbated by a lack of planning that means organisations do not precisely know what their production IT estate looks like in terms of dependencies, and what needs to be recovered in what order and when. Against this backdrop, it is easy to understand how IT executives fall into the trap of buying point solutions that recover some of their platforms – but by no means all of their IT infrastructure.

Recognising that this definitely is not an area where ‘one size fits all’, we offer you expert advice to match the right cloud recovery option from our comprehensive portfolio to your actual business needs.

We can help you tier applications by their criticality to the business, with the most important having instant failover or fast recovery while secondary applications can take a little longer to recover.

In this way, we are able to help you make the best use of finite resources.

To learn more about any of our cloud-based recovery services visit our website, call your account manager or email avail@sungardas.com.

 

1 Source: Gartner May 2015

Hybrid Cloud Solution Fuels Expansion of Online Car Parts Supplier MicksGarage.com

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Successful Irish e-commerce company MicksGarage.com needed a cloud partner it could depend on to support its ambitious plans for expansion across Europe. With more than 6.5 million product listings on offer and customers always needing spare parts urgently, the business is heavily dependent on its IT infrastructure to manage the complex logistics operation.

 

Micks Garage video Capture

Click on the image to watch the video

 

Having worked with the award-winning e-commerce business from its beginnings in 2003, MicksGarage.com chose Sungard AS to provide the resilient, multi-tenant cloud solution that would give it the high availability, accessibility and scalability the company needs.

The company has recently opened a distribution centre in Krakow, Poland to service the flourishing Eastern European market, and a Liverpool site is scheduled to open in 2016 to support next day deliveries to the UK.

As a business that ships over 18,000 car parts and accessories to more than 100 countries every month, it is no exaggeration when co-founder and Operations Director Michael Crean states, “Downtime would simply be disastrous – we would lose customers, revenue and future business.”

With the company’s expansion plans resulting in frequent travel, the ability to access systems remotely from anywhere in the world was also vital.

After carefully considering the customer’s needs, we recommended a highly available load balanced multi-tenant cloud solution, as well as a redundant physical server, to ensure there is no single point of failure. This gives MicksGarage.com the capability to handle sudden spikes in demand, which with its first TV advertising campaign imminent, Michael Crean finds hugely reassuring.

“Availability is absolutely critical to us. If a customer finds the website down they may never come back. Being down for even a minute would cost us hundreds of euros – an hour would run to thousands – and that’s without the knock to our reputation. We needed a partner who absolutely guarantees us uptime and the level of availability we enjoy is outstanding.”

The set-up is supported by 24-hour proactive availability monitoring of the infrastructure platform with client-defined thresholds and Managed Operating System Patch Management.

Read the full case study here

New deal will help aviation and logistics giant transform its IT estate

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You may have read in the press that Sungard Availability Services has signed a ten year strategic partnership with global airline services and major logistics supplier John Menzies PLC for the provision of IT services.

The partnership will enable John Menzies to transform its current IT infrastructure by leveraging our global data centre, cloud infrastructure and network management capabilities, and extensive experience in delivering global managed IT solutions.

Building on its current IT infrastructure, John Menzies will use the IT environment as a foundation for further investment in innovative IT and business systems to create strategic differentiation and enhanced operational performance and customer experience. The company recognised this is vital in today’s digital age, where customers expect instantaneous services, from flexible and convenient deliveries for online shopping, through to instant updates on travel information.

With daily deliveries to 45 per cent of the UK’s retailers, customers at 144 airports worldwide, and a business that serves over 300 airlines, John Menzies deals with millions of transactions on a daily basis. Operating out of 31 countries and over 150 locations, it needed a partner that could not only ensure the robustness of its IT estate, but also provide a solid platform to scale up as required.

As part of the multi-million pound contract, we will take on responsibility for John Menzies’ IT network and effect a full transformation of its services to cloud-based solutions. This will deliver the robust, agile and future-proofed IT services the firm needs to continue growing both its aviation and distribution services.

The first phase of the project has already begun with the successful migration of the recovery services for Menzies’ SAP environment into our main UK data centre. Subsequent phases will include data centre consolidation, enterprise managed services and network managed services – all underpinned by a cloud enablement strategy.

Steve Rick, Senior Vice President of John Menzies, commented:

“This strategic partnership represents a significant step forward for Menzies, and provides a new platform for further development and innovation. The excellent scalability of Sungard AS’ IT solutions provides us with a cost effective way to scale up to meet our business demands, and the consultancy we receive provides a high return on investment. We are confident that this joint programme will support our continued focus on improving our customers’ experience, and we are delighted to work with a global partner with an excellent track record for IT excellence and strategy.”

Keith Tilley, EVP Global Sales and Customer Services Management for Sungard AS added:

“Sungard Availability Services has built its success on delivering strong strategic partnerships with forward-thinking organisations like Menzies. We’re delighted to have the opportunity to work so closely with Menzies to build a model and methodology that will not just deliver, but truly power the mission critical IT systems that support their global customers’ needs.”

It could be you – DDoS attacks are now big enough to knock most businesses offline

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When hackers took down Ireland’s National Lottery website with a Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attack in January, it was just the latest in a series of damaging and high profile cyberattacks to hit businesses worldwide.

Over 275 million records were leaked last year, often in combination with a DDoS attack to mask the hacking attempt. In fact, as one pundit1 commented, “the volume of data breaches and cyberattacks that marked 2015 could be appropriately described as a ‘cascade’ or ‘torrent’ or, perhaps, ‘maelstrom’. Money has been stolen, data has been swiped and lives have been ruined.”

While online security breaches can take many forms, DDoS attacks are a rapidly growing problem and no business or industry sector is immune. In recent months we have seen attacks on such diverse targets as banks, insurers, airlines, dating agencies, hotel chains, food manufacturers, healthcare providers, newspapers, universities, retailers, local authorities and government departments – even a well-known greeting card supplier with a particularly memorable jingle. Every business with an online presence is vulnerable to this threat.

According to a new report from Arbor Networks2, DDoS attacks are now big enough to knock most businesses offline.

The largest attack reported last year was 500Gbps – a 60 times increase in 11 years. While there were also reports of attacks of 450Gbps, 425Gbps and 337Gbps these were relatively rare. However, the report noted, “What is significant is that the average of just under 2Gbps, which we see across tens of thousands of attacks, is enough to overwhelm most business internet connections.”

So what exactly is a DDoS attack? DDoS can be compared to taking down your shop front by placing a large protest outside your shop. It then becomes very difficult because of the size of the crowd for genuine customers to get in. Without any customers it stands to reason the business suffers a drop in revenue. However, unlike in the physical world, these attackers (or to continue the analogy, protestors) are anonymous. Some – like (ironically) the group Anonymous – may publish their organisational name for financial reward or notoriety but, largely, they go unchecked.

DDoS attacks the number one online threat today

Forrester’s figures state there are now some 7,000 DDoS attacks every day. The asynchronous nature of the internet means very large attacks can be generated through huge botnets or amplification and reflection attacks. Ireland, in particular over the past few weeks, has seen a dramatic rise in the number of companies being struck. These attacks have hit so many disparate enterprises it is hard to see any correlation between the targets.

Sungard Availability Services has been offering a DDoS mitigation service for the past five years and this has escalated from being a ‘nice to have’ to an absolutely essential part of a ‘defence in depth’ security model. This is the coordinated use of multiple security countermeasures to protect the integrity of the data in a business. Such a strategy is based on the military principle that it is more difficult for an enemy to defeat a complex and multi-layered defence system than to penetrate a single barrier.

“No consideration was given to the possibility of DDoS attacks in the original internet architecture. Consequently, almost all internet services are vulnerable to attacks of sufficient scale.”

As well as the size and sophistication of attacks increasing, a common trend now is for attackers to hack the target company’s systems at the same time as launching a DDoS attack. Going back to our crowd analogy, it is the situation where one person bumps into you as the other steals your wallet.

So how does Sungard AS defend customers against this activity? Some of our techniques are to:

  • Use white lists and black lists drawn up per client to block attacking hosts, or load a white list of the last 10,000 users from a week ago.
  • Standard network firewalling – where most attacks are ‘dumb’; UDP misuse attacks, NTP reflection attacks, we can profile our customers to filter out from our scrubbing centre most attacks that come into Sungard AS.
  • Mitigation countermeasures such as Global Exception List, Geo-IP validation, Geo-IP Filtering, Global Botnet Filter, Zombie Management & Control, TCP SYN Authentication, HTTP Authentication, HTTP Object Rate Limiting, HTTP Request Rate Limiting, Malformed HTTP, HTTP Header Regex Filtering, DNS Proxy, Malformed DNS, DNS Authentication and Regular Expression Filters.

Perhaps naively, no consideration was given to the possibility of DDoS attacks in the original internet architecture. Consequently, almost all internet services are vulnerable to attacks of sufficient scale.

What is your connection to the internet worth? DDoS attacks are the number one threat to your online presence today. An attack can last an hour, a day or even weeks. It will bring down your website, DNS and application servers leading to significant costs in terms of:

  • Loss of your e-commerce presence
  • Loss of systems efficiency
  • Loss of revenues (and the impact of downtime on your share price and custom)
  • Loss of reputation and stakeholder confidence.

Sungard AS has extensive DDoS mitigation expertise. We can detect an attack within 180 seconds and deploy an effective response within 5 to 7 minutes, well within our SLA commitment of 15 minutes.

But defence against an attack is harder to do on the fly. It is quicker and far more effective to proactively implement defensive measures in readiness rather than wait until you are under attack.

There is something you can do to protect yourself today. If online security is currently languishing way down your To Do list, email avail@sungardas.com or pick up the phone to your account manager to discuss DDoS mitigation as a matter of urgency.

 

1 Lewis Morgan, IT Governance, ‘List of Data breaches and cyberattacks in 2015 – over 275 million leaked records’: 14.12.15
2 Computer Weekly: ‘Average DDoS attacks fatal to most businesses, report reveals’ – 27.1.16

Sweden data centre doubles capacity

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Sungard Availability Services Sweden has recently completed an exciting project to expand its data centre in Sätra, south of Stockholm.

The original Data Centre 2 South site was sold out, which meant we were unable to offer customers in Sweden a dual-site solution that is one of the cornerstones of resilience. As well as doubling the size of the data centre, associated power and cooling supply (750kW) systems needed to be incorporated. The enlarged data centre already has its first customer with the signing of Coromatic.

It will hold ISO 9001, 14001 and 27001 certifications and offer a PCI DSS-accredited production environment for customers requiring high availability. The current Sätra site had previously been awarded the title Green Data Centre of the Year and the expanded site will be equally energy-efficient.

To find out more about our data centre in Sweden, email avail@sungardas.com.

Customer Advisory Board (CAB)

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We interviewed Chairman of Sungard Availability Services’ Customer Advisory Board (CAB) John Turner (IT Director for BDO in his day job) about his plans for the CAB and you can hear what he said here.

CAB video Capture

Click on the image to watch the video

 

Established to act as ‘the voice of the customer’, the CAB consists of a group of Sungard AS customers who meet three times a year and influence the shape of our new products and services.

Members of the board:

Charlie Rothwell
Senior Executive – UKI Infrastructure Transformation Lead | Accenture

​John Turner (Chairman)
IT Director | BDO

​Jon Summers
Head of Business Continuity Management | Sainsburys Bank

Koen Uyttenhove
Systems Architecture and Quality Leader | Transics

Lee Webb
Director, Recovery Solutioning and Positioning, Corporate Real Estate Solutions | Barclays

Mario Pascoe
Head of Business Continuity | Centrica PLC

Matt Gridley
CTO | Raymond James Investment Services Limited

Steve Conway
SVP, Director of Information Technology | Permal Investment Management Services Limited

Steve Marwood
VP – CSBC Business Manager | Deutsche Bank

All members of the Customer Advisory Board are happy to be contacted with comments or suggestions concerning Sungard AS services or to offer practical advice. They c​an be contacted by emailing as.uk.advisoryboard.uk@sungardas.com.

The next CAB meeting is on 28th June.

If you’d like to get involved, send feedback or find out more about the CAB’s work, please email the CAB: as.uk.advisoryboard.uk@sungardas.com.

 

New Webinar

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How to achieve successful crisis management and BC outcomes

Ongoing on-demand webinar
Hardly a quarter goes by without a well-known name becoming caught up in a major business crisis. Banks, retailers, manufacturing, media, telecoms and petro-chemicals firms have all taken their turn in the media spotlight as IT systems fail, systems are hacked, data is stolen and processes falter.

This calls into question the value of corporate governance and the role of the executive who listens but does not hear the risk manager’s concerns, their warnings getting lost among the many other pressing issues clamouring for attention.

Unfortunately, this failure to act is now costing businesses millions of pounds as sales collapse and capital value is slashed, sometimes never to be recovered.

If you’d like to achieve more successful business continuity outcomes and better crisis management, find out how in this on-demand webinar by one of our BC experts!

Click here to view the webinar

Setting our sights on award success

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We recently learned that Sungard Availability Services has again been shortlisted in every category entered in the CIR Business Continuity Awards 2016.

We have an unequalled track record in these awards, having won a record number of gongs over the years, but never forget that competition is always fierce.

We were thrilled that Royal Bank of Canada’s Roger Payne has been deservedly shortlisted in the Student of the Year category. Meanwhile, we are finalists in the Most Effective Recovery of the Year (for our handling of the Chennai floods), Best Contribution to Continuity & Resilience, Most Innovative Solution (for our RaaS offering, also recognised in Gartner’s inaugural Disaster Recovery as a Service Magic Quadrant in the Leader position ) and Resilience in Infrastructure & IT Service Delivery categories.

Winners will be announced at the awards ceremony on 9 June, which will take place at the London Marriott hotel and will be hosted by comedian Ed Byrne.

Having also submitted entries for the BCI Europe and India Awards, as well as the Datacloud Awards, we hope we’ll have some more good news to report in the summer issue!

Season’s greetings

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Welcome to the winter edition of AVAIL!

We have a jam-packed Winter edition of AVAIL for you with news of new services – including SAP HANA and in the pipeline the exciting Recovery Execution System, which we are in the process of getting patented.

Also in this issue I share my IT predictions for 2016, and we bring some surprising headline findings from our research into Hybrid IT, which sparked an imaginative Jekyll & Hyde campaign.

2015 has been a year of achievement for our Ireland operation, which has been awarded the highest level of information security accreditation and expanded its data centre facilities. This is just one of the many global infrastructure investments we’ve made over the past year.

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.

All that remains is for me to wish you a happy and peaceful festive season on behalf of all of the Sungard Availability Services team!

Keith Tilley

EVP, global sales and customer services management

Leadership Update with Andy Stern

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This is the first issue of a global, customer newsletter from Sungard AS. AVAIL had been produced previously just for our European customers. Broadening the scope reflects our efforts to serve you in a standard way across continents. Other executives in our business will be providing you insights into areas of the business in future issues. I’m first up with the Q&A below.

This year I’ve had conversations with many customers globally. I was able to personally convey how dedicated we are to being your IT partner. For those of you whom I’ve not yet met, know that Sungard AS appreciates your business. On behalf of my colleagues at Sungard AS, I want to extend our wishes for a prosperous New Year. We look forward to working with you in 2016.

andy

Q: How is Sungard AS faring now that it’s an independent company?

Andy: When we split-off from SunGard Data Systems in April 2014, we anticipated greater flexibility to evolve our brand, our culture and our industry relationships to best serve our customers. We started with our own brand identity and then refined what today is a very clear value proposition. Simply put, we will work with you, our customers, to understand your unique business needs. Then we will help to customize the environment that best fits your desired outcomes, leveraging both our production and recovery capabilities. This listen-first, tailored, grounded-in-resilience approach, you’ve told us, addresses needs that many other organizations cannot. Evolving our brand was one of the bigger opportunities when we split from SunGard Data Systems, and we’ve really carried through.

At the same time, we’ve invested in additional cloud instances, power, and workplace recovery seats globally. This year alone we invested in capabilities in Dublin, London, Stockholm, Bangalore and a number of core North American markets. We further have released many new offerings across our recovery and production services portfolio, at times working with other industry leaders. We continue to build strong partnerships with leaders such as Cisco, AT&T and EMC.

Financially, we’ve significantly improved our cash position and already paid down a portion of our debt. All in all, our goal has been not just to turnaround our business but to transform it. We have more to do, but we’re well on our way.

Q: Has your strategic direction changed since the split-off from SunGard Data Systems?

Andy: Our strategy hasn’t really changed, but, as an independent company, we’re able to move much faster to implement it. This year, for example, we sold eight non-core data centers in the U.S., freeing us to offer more of our services portfolio in strategic markets to us.

We’ve also evolved our organizational structure to better align with our strategy. Today we have a global approach to how we develop our offerings and to our operational support model. With this approach, we are realizing greater efficiencies ….more consistently delivering our services around the world…onboarding new customers faster…and leveraging our product development innovations globally. We continue to have deep technical expertise, which we are applying to develop innovative services such as the cloud-based recovery solution for Amazon Web Services we announced in October for the U.S. This “cloud brokerage” service adds recovery to the AWS IAAS cloud that you may be using as part of your IT environment.

Q: What are you doing operationally to improve?

Andy: Our focus on globalizing the business has enabled us to standardize and continuously improve our operations. Right now our team in India is working to standardize our processes and operational support globally. That will better enable us to leverage our skilled professionals globally while delivering a consistent service experience to you. We’re automating more activities, such as improving our customer portal. We have a redesigned, cleaner portal landing page and more self-service options. Now you can do more activities yourself, such as getting enhanced reporting, entering requests, reporting issues, checking ticket status and viewing configurations.

Speaking of automation…we also are automating workflow tasks for planning and executing our Managed Recovery Program. We are particularly excited about the possibilities for our proprietary Recovery Execution System. RES has already demonstrated that, through a high degree of orchestration and automation, we can much more quickly build infrastructure, reduce human errors and become more scalable and efficient in the delivery of recovery services.

Q: Since its founding decades ago, how is Sungard AS changing to be relevant?

Andy: We’ve been perfecting disaster recovery since 1978, when we introduced the world’s first commercial hotsite in Philadelphia. There’s still a market for those customers who want to use a shared infrastructure and off-site storage option for their own employees to use for recovery testing. But, in addition to our traditional services, we have a broad suite of recovery services today, providing a holistic approach to business resiliency. Our continued industry leadership is evidenced in both Gartner’s 2015 Magic Quadrant Disaster Recovery as a Service report and in the DRaaS MarketScape report that IDC published last month. Not to mention the growing number of patents we’ve received (10 since April 2014, most of them related to recovery innovations).

According to DR Benchmark, roughly half of outages are caused by software or network failures; only 14 percent are weather related. Outages happen. It’s not just about preparing to recover but building resilience into our solutions. Today we’re leveraging our deep expertise and experience in DR by integrating recovery into our production solutions. That’s a more cost-effective resilience approach for you.

Increasingly many of our customers see beyond our DR capabilities. It’s why more than half of our business today is in the provision of production services. It’s why our integrated solutions – encompassing Recovery as a Service, Cloud and other managed services – are our fastest growing business. These solutions help us help you solve your most critical IT challenges.

 

 

 

 

2016 Will be the Year of Complexity

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By Keith Tilley, EVP, Global Sales & Customer Services Management at Sungard Availability Services

IT continues to change and develop at a rapid rate. While this pace of change can be exciting, more often than not it leaves many organisations facing complexity and confusion. 2016 will be no exception.

All businesses are feeling the pressure to innovate – not just from an efficiency and cost saving perspective – but also to remain competitive. Technologies like flexible virtualised platforms are perfect enablers of this, however if not adopted correctly they can ironically do more harm than good. Whether it’s leaving businesses with costly ‘cloud hangovers’ or unmanageable Hybrid IT estates, organisations need to be measured and considered in their approach to IT in 2016.

Alongside this pressure to adapt using new technologies, the constant change of regulation and compliance laws have left many feeling uneasy about where they stand. The research we have carried out this year has pointed towards a shortage in the appropriate skills needed to manage modern IT environments; it’s likely that we will see an increased demand for Managed Service Providers (MSPs) to help businesses through what is set to be a complex year. With this in mind we have identified four challenges we expect to see in the New Year:

    1. Regaining Control: Hybrid IT is Stifling Innovation
      Keen to adopt cloud solutions but not yet ready or able to move all of their IT to the cloud, organisations have evolved to a state where they are running their business across a number of different IT platforms, whether that is private or public cloud, on premise servers, or data centre services. This is Hybrid IT.While cloud computing may be considered the gateway to innovation, it is ironic to think that this rush to embrace it has now begun to prevent many organisations from innovating. Our research found that nearly a third of UK organisations (31 per cent) have seen an increase in operating costs thanks to Hybrid IT, adding an average of £251,868 every year.That is not to say that Hybrid IT does not have its benefits – 92 per cent of organisations identified this approach as a critical component of their success, with 77 per cent stating that it was a necessary part of staying competitive. In order to conquer this Jekyll & Hyde style ‘split personality’ of Hybrid IT in 2016, organisations need to invest in the right skills to understand and manage these different applications that sit across IT platforms and to maintain security, availability and integration.

 

    1. Unchartered Data Regulation Territory
      With regulations frequently introduced and updated it is easy to see that organisations do not know exactly where they stand. For example the recent change to the Safe Harbor ruling make specific restrictions against US ‘based’ companies – but what does ‘US based’ even mean? Is it those companies whose HQ is in the US? Or any company that has a presence there?One thing is clear; organisations are in the dark about what is right and what is wrong, which is unacceptable. With corporate reputation on the line and the threat of hefty fines looming, businesses will not have the excuse of playing ignorant. Businesses need to ensure that they have taken all the necessary precautions. With this in mind organisations should expect a high level of understanding from any technology providers they work with, along with sufficient accreditation such as the globally accepted ISO 27001 standards.

 

    1. Mind the Skills Gap
      For years businesses have been bombarded by messages about the cloud and virtual technologies and the benefits offered: cutting costs, simplifying IT and reducing the time taken to launch new products and services.What isn’t mentioned is the demand created for a new set of skills. Despite what is often promised, the cloud is rarely set up and managed in a couple of clicks. It requires an in-depth knowledge of new (and often niche) IT platforms as well as a full re-think of the general procurement process, plus working out which applications can be migrated to the cloud, and how. This is especially true in this era of Hybrid IT, given that cloud sits alongside legacy technology, other applications and indeed other clouds. In fact, we found that half of organisations (50 per cent) claim they do not have the skill sets needed to manage a complex IT environment, which is why they are increasingly rightsourcing for experts help.

 

  1. Too much choice causing a headache
    There are many different options when it comes to cloud computing, or other technology applications. While a variety of options is without a doubt a positive, it could lead many businesses to become confused or drift into an IT solution that is not optimum for delivering business outcomes.

Forget the technical specifications, today’s IT is about enabling businesses to increase their bottom-line by reacting quicker to market changes, staying ahead of the competition and offering the right services to customers in an all-time world.

A well-considered battle plan is essential for success in 2016, ensuring you are using every weapon at your disposal, especially IT. And if having an expert cloud or Managed Services Partner as part of this process, able to free up the CIO to make those all important strategic decisions that will deliver the desired business outcomes… So be it.

Campaign highlights the horrors of hybrid IT

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Health warning:
Do not read on if you are of a delicate disposition

Sungard Availability Services’ new Jekyll & Hyde research-led campaign lifts the lid on a disturbing new phenomenon rapidly taking over IT departments of businesses around the country. We are talking about the strange state of affairs known as ‘Hybrid IT’.

Sparked by research revealing this approach was a deliberate strategy for 75% of organisations, the campaign highlights the numerous problems a mix of often-conflicting IT platforms can cause. A cunning combination of private or public cloud, on-premise servers and data centre services – deemed necessary to remain competitive – has increased the complexity of IT estates and the resultant muddled mess is making it difficult for IT decision-makers to innovate.

But as we all know, there are two sides to every story and over half (53%) claimed to have seen an increase in business agility. Improved customer service and the speed of product developments were also cited as benefits by 39% and 37% respectively. However, perhaps unsurprisingly, this tortuously tangled IT infrastructure has increased the running costs of IT with nearly a third of organisations (31%) claiming it adds an average of £251,868 every year!

article-4_in-post-image_campaign-highlights-horrors-of-hybrid-it

Worryingly, half say they do not have the skill sets needed to manage their hybrid IT estates. Over a third (38%) lack the necessary skills to deal with security issues while integration and interoperability are also crucial concerns. More than a quarter (27%) are struggling to integrate private cloud environments into their IT estate and 22% admit to difficulties managing different IT systems across separate business departments.

The campaign explains that a professionally prepared elixir with the right combination of ingredients can transform the Hyde in your IT environment into a much more agreeable Jekyll and tame the beast that is Hybrid IT.

Our retail customers may be interested to know that a press release uncovering the ghastly goings-on in their sector will be released in the week of 23 November while financial services customers should fortify themselves with a stiff tonic in preparation for more sector-specific revelations in the week of 7 December.

If you are among the many organisations bedevilled by a shortage of IT professionals with specialist skills, gird yourself for the release of a white paper on this very topic in the New Year.

Now if you are fortunate to be blessed with a robust constitution you are welcome to digest more scary survey snippets by downloading the white paper here but, be warned, you read at your peril!

Get the most out of your SAP HANA investment

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If your organisation depends on SAP you may well be considering moving to SAP HANA to benefit from enhanced performance. But to get the most out of your complex SAP HANA environment it needs to be optimised and this can be difficult to achieve on your own. From getting the number of licences right to interoperability issues and the cloud migration process itself, there are many potential pitfalls to trip the unwary in the rush to embrace SAP HANA.

As for Oracle, Sungard Availability Services offers proven Application Management Services for SAP environments that assure you of high availability, avoid compatibility issues and ensure you pay only for the number of licences you actually need. This is no simple task given the tangle of legacy and shadow IT-acquired environments faced by most businesses, exacerbated by the added challenge of accelerated SAP HANA adoption.

Our experienced consultants first gain an understanding of your business requirements then design and build an optimised, consumption-based SAP HANA environment. This is tailored to your specific requirements and delivered via the cloud. If you’ve been paying for more licences than your organisation needs – or, like many businesses, are unsure of your license requirements and running the risk of non-compliance – this enables you to ‘right size’ your SAP HANA infrastructure.

In the past, one of the major hurdles was identifying exactly how much compute power each customer used on shared servers. We are able to overcome that through the use of hardware partitioning in our virtual platforms. This allows us to identify consumption by individual customer so each pays only for what they use.

The robust configuration we design for you will be based on SAP HANA infrastructure from top to bottom, which means it’s fully approved and supported. It also eliminates any disputes concerning compatibility or ownership of technical issues. We take a holistic view of your whole hybrid IT ecosystem to ensure all the data, applications and systems that feed into your SAP HANA infrastructure will work as they did before following your move to the cloud.

Then, of course, while SAP HANA has all the inbuilt resilience you would expect from any Sungard Availability Services-managed application, in the unlikely event of an interruption, who better to manage your recovery?

If your organisation is among the thousands of SAP customers considering moving away from what they view as a monolithic application to the brave new world of the cloud and you would like to find out more, talk to your account manager, email avail@sungardas.com or call 0800 143 413.

Avoid a season of discontent: How to keep your business moving during travel disruptions this winter

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By Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President for Global Sales and Customer Services

Whether it be storms, snow or flooding, the ever changing winter weather is notorious for grinding transport to a halt, causing misery to commuters and costing businesses precious workforce productivity.

The issue of the dreaded commute appears to be one that is getting worse. Not only are these disruptions a problem for businesses in the immediate, but it can also have an impact on employee mentality and in turn productivity in the long run. With research finding that people will spend over 10,634 hours of their career commuting to work1 – mostly in increasingly cramped and uncomfortable conditions. As delays and disruptions increase in the winter months, it is enough to frustrate even the most resilient commuter, leading inevitably to a drop in effectiveness at work.

The weather has always been a topic of concern for us Brits, yet we seem powerless when it comes to provisioning against it. The government has been criticised for its lack of a coherent and consistent strategy when it comes to dealing with extreme weather in the past, and no long term solution appears to have emerged. So, how can businesses combat the elements and remain productive?

The key lies in working with your staff, and not against them, by creating a work environment that allows them to work anywhere – no matter the weather. Flexible working is no longer the novelty it once was; in fact arrangements are increasingly regarded as a right, not privilege, especially as the new generation starts to enter the workforce. As such today’s businesses are starting to rethink the way they provision their computing environment in the interests of agility through times of stagnation.

Turning to virtual technologies could be the answer. If the workforce can access business critical information from any device or location this would reduce the need for many employees to waste hours battling the disrupted commute and could support hot-desking and other space saving working models. It also cuts down the risk of disruption should the office be left inaccessible due to extreme weather or other issues.

Employees normally tied to the office with a desktop PC are symptomatic of an old-fashioned and outdated approach to handling sensitive information and increasing productivity. Virtualising the desktop and applications is arguably the best way to secure your data and provide work location flexibility since the data and processing takes place in a datacentre not the end-user device. Face to face meetings are still a vital part of business communications, but having the option to work from different locations could prove valuable in enhancing both staff efficiency and employee happiness.

The adoption of cloud computing has been a critical turning point in unlocking employee productivity regardless of time or place. In fact, earlier in the year we commissioned research2 which found that when utilised properly the cloud gave businesses increased agility for 77% of respondents, improved availability for 67%, and 43% claimed that the cloud gave them a competitive advantage.

Working practices have failed to catch up with the modern era. The need to go to the office on a strict 9-5 basis is an outdated concept that does not fit with today’s digital age, or the expectations of Gen-Y workers. A modern business needs to invest in modern solutions, giving employees the freedom they now expect. Ultimately, an employee’s business contribution is not measured by their office presence, but in the results and value they supply – does the location from where these are achieved really matter?

1http://www.telegraph.co.uk/finance/personalfinance/household-bills/10792453/Commuting-costs-50000-over-a-career.html
2http://www.sungardas.co.uk/Services/Cloud/Pages/Cloud-Hangover.aspx

Ireland customers benefit from unrivalled infrastructure and expertise

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The many achievements of the Sungard Availability Services Ireland team during 2015 mean customers can be reassured they are in great hands! These include gaining the highest level of information security management accreditation and the addition of a state-of-the-art Certified Tier III data centre, capped by a brand new appointment strengthening Ireland’s senior management team.

Following on from certification of our enterprise-grade shared private cloud environment and managed services offering in Ireland, our ISO 27001: 2013 information security accreditation has now been extended to cover the new facility at Profile Park, Dublin. This internationally recognised, independent verification shows we can securely manage information security, maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and availability of all data. It means we have proved we’ve taken all appropriate steps to properly secure both our own data and that of customers, giving you peace of mind that your mission-critical information is safe and readily accessible.

The partnership with Digital Realty Trust announced last issue not only gives us larger data centre facilities in Dublin and underlying infrastructure for our full portfolio of services including our global cloud platform, but will also create around 50 new jobs in Ireland. One of those new positions is that of Head of New Business Development, part of a new strategy for us that will specifically centre on developing relationships and providing consultancy to new and existing customers looking to expand their presence in Ireland. The impressive Paul Slattery has recently been appointed to the role, which reports directly into Jean-Philippe Sohier, SVP of European Sales.

With over 20 years’ experience, Slattery brings with him a wealth of industry knowledge and important strategic connections having worked for companies including UPC Ireland, Verizon (WorldCom) – and most recently represented GTT Communications as Sales Director for UK and Ireland. Slattery also acts as an Adjunct Lecturer for the UCD Michael Smurfit Graduate Business School where he lectures on their Executive MBA programme, as well as giving back to the community by helping out on projects such as Jobnet.

Commenting on his appointment, Paul stated, “I’m thrilled to have joined Sungard Availability Services, especially at such an exciting time for the company in Ireland. It’s great to see the growing demand from global businesses looking to host their data here and benefit from the infrastructure and knowledge economy that is rapidly developing within the region. I’m looking forward to working with the team to attract some great customers and create more jobs here in Ireland.”

Given all the developments during 2015 you might think the Ireland team could afford to slow down a little but that is unlikely to happen. “In today’s market, which is increasingly focused around online services, data security is of critical importance and this will only become more so with forthcoming changes to data protection regulations,” Paul Slattery explains. “As the gateway to Europe, we expect our Ireland operation to see increased demand from businesses for our proven cloud and infrastructure services from businesses to whom resilience and compliance is paramount.”

Ongoing investment in workplace recovery centres worldwide

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During 2015 Sungard Availability Services invested heavily in building our global network of workplace recovery centres, reinforcing our continued commitment to business continuity and workforce enablement. This comes at a time when commercial property prices have increased, service provider supply has reduced and demand for workplace recovery seats remains healthy. In case you missed any of the announcements, here’s a recap of developments during the past year:

City of London (COL) Recovery Centre

We opened a brand-new workplace recovery centre in central London, the first of its kind in a decade. The 700-seat facility is equipped with the latest conferencing equipment and IT infrastructure. Users have access to 10GB-ready networking infrastructure, which is able to cope with heavier data traffic and increasing workloads.

The site is perfectly positioned within walking distance of the City and works well as part of a ‘near-far’ business availability solution in conjunction with one of our many sites throughout Greater London and the south-east. The Financial Conduct Authority’s requirement for financial services companies (including insurers) to “maintain continuity of all core systems in the face of loss or failure resources, loss of information and even external events such as vandalism or acts of God” means this site has great strategic importance for our customers and the market as a whole.

Profile Park, Dublin

As reported in the summer edition of AVAIL, we made a significant investment to expand our presence in Ireland following a partnership with Digital Realty, the world’s largest data centre provider. It is providing the data centre and underlying infrastructure from which we can host our award-winning global cloud platform and a full range of production and recovery services.

Designed to address Ireland’s growing demand for agile, flexible and resilient IT services, this expansion also allows us to cater for the increasing number of businesses choosing to base themselves in Ireland. The infrastructure provided by Digital Realty’s new technology hub in Dublin enables the building out of our pre-existing facility to create up to 300 additional dedicated end-user positions where firms can relocate critical personnel during a disaster.

Bangalore

During the year we also opened our fourth workplace recovery site in India with a new 265 seat facility in Bangalore joining existing facilities in Noida, Mumbai and Chennai. This takes our total number of seats in the region to nearly 2,600, which we believe makes Sungard AS the largest provider in India.

India remains a popular destination for European and US companies looking to offshore operations to a cost-competitive, relatively stable and scalable location. We have a thriving operation in India helping the domestic and international business community mitigate general and location-specific threats. Multinationals, in particular, increasingly expect the same high level of business continuity (BC) provision enjoyed by their operations in Europe or the US for commercial and regulatory reasons.

The Business Continuity Institute (BCI), the world’s leading body for BC professionals, recognised Sungard AS India’s market leadership with three awards in 2015. We were judged Business Continuity Provider of the Year for Service and Product for the third year in a row while AssuranceCM, our business continuity management software, also won the Continuity & Resilience Innovation award.

Wroclaw, Poland

We are in the process of expanding our Wroclaw site for dedicated use by an existing customer, which will see seat numbers increase to 400 positions. This is scheduled to be completed by early 2016.

These investments demonstrate the increasing demand from organisations not only for physical recovery space but also virtual and cloud-based solutions that will enable them to keep their businesses running, no matter what.

For information about any of our workplace recovery centres, call us on 0800 143 413 or email avail@sungardas.com

Game-changing technology cuts recovery time by up to 70% for MRP customers

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It isn’t often in our sector that something genuinely transformational comes along and revolutionises the industry. We think we have achieved this with our new Recovery Execution System (RES), an invention so original that Sungard Availability Services is in the process of patenting it.

Traditional recovery of hybrid IT environments requires a lot of manual processes to understand the customer’s production environment, build and maintain a recovery environment at time of test or disaster and keep the two perfectly aligned throughout its lifecycle.

Not any more! Sungard AS has obliterated all of the manual recovery processes and, uniquely, automated recovery from start to finish. On average, this change cuts recovery time by 70%. Yes 70%.

So how do we do it? (Here comes the technical bit)

Our Managed Recovery Programme (MRP) is a systematic approach to recovery that holistically encompasses the people, process and governance elements involved and leverages technology to achieve the required recovery outcome. Its comprehensive scope includes discovery of the customer production environment and application dependencies, design of the recovery strategy and plans, at time of test or disaster execution of recovery and ongoing lifecycle management.

Traditionally, recovery execution has involved maintaining and executing manual recovery procedures – a process that is both resource-intensive and prone to human error. Based on our extensive experience of successfully recovering customers, we have invented an innovative automation process – Recovery Execution System (RES)1 – solely for MRP customers.

MRP leverages automated Application Discovery and Dependency Mapping (ADDM) technology to address the customer’s pain point of identifying production layout and keeping up with lifecycle changes. This allows the customer recovery configuration to be kept up-to-date in a Sungard AS-hosted and managed Configuration Management Database (CMDB).

MRP powered by RES now dynamically reads the recovery configuration from the CMDB and automatically generates the recovery workflow – the set of instructions used to execute the recovery at time of test or disaster – on the fly. While there are other systems on the market today that automate the discovery process and map dependencies, we have taken the concept to the next level by using the information contained in the CMDB to automatically generate and execute the entire recovery workflow process, eliminating the need for manual development and maintenance of procedure documents.

Automating the recovery process in this way has many benefits:

  • Cuts recovery time by up to 70%. This is made possible due to automated provisioning, building, configuring and restoring of hosts.
  • Eliminates the risk of human error. Instead of laboriously drawing up recovery procedures manually, RES automatically generates a methodical, step-by-step recovery workflow which is then executed by IT process orchestration technology. Consequently, it ensures repeatable results and improved recoverability.
  • Enables skilled resources to focus on complex recovery issues. If the recovery process stalls for any reason or the system encounters data corruption, the system instantly produces an IT trouble ticket for immediate attention by our skilled service engineers to resolve before resuming the automated execution.
  • Enables better end user validation testing. As tests and recoveries are performed in a fraction of the time with RES, there is more time available during a recovery exercise for end user validation and acceptance testing by the customer.

Although the RES orchestration framework is initially being used for recovery purposes, work is underway to explore the feasibility of extending it to other use cases such as data centre migration and an ‘appliance’ mode that allows it to work outside a Sungard Availability Services setting.

Already live in the US, RES (patent pending) is scheduled to become available for MRP customers across Europe in the first half of 2016.

To find out more about MRP or how RES works, please contact your account manager in the first instance, call 0800 143 413 or email infoavail@sungardas.com

1Patent applied for

Finding the right IT skills just got harder

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Back in the spring issue, we highlighted the current shortage of IT specialists and showed how this is causing real problems for nearly four out of ten firms who are struggling to recruit workers with the advanced technical skills they need.

As we all know, this is a perennial problem but it has been exacerbated by the growth of cloud computing, which has made digital technologies more affordable for small and medium-sized businesses that no longer have to deal with prohibitive upfront costs. In the past, it was only employees at ‘traditional’ IT firms that required digital skills, now staff from a wide range of industries are required to have some form of computer literacy.

This has led to increased competition for individuals with IT skills as recruiters realise there is a looming skills gap where companies cannot find members of staff with the knowledge and expertise to exploit cloud resources. It has meant that some existing members of staff have been retrained or reskilled in order to smooth the transition from in-house IT resources to those based in the cloud. Businesses have also had to face new challenges relating to the cloud, relying on their employees to handle any disruptions. Issues relating to data protection and integration are relatively recent business phenomena brought about by the cloud and employees that have the skills needed to deal with these issues are highly sought-after.

The cloud has also had a major impact on the skill sets required by more technical staff. The cloud delivery model has led to more regular software updates and faster deployments, changing the role played by developers. Software engineers must now have the skills to handle automation and DevOps, two relatively recent cloud developments. The role of a developer is now more closely aligned with operations staff and other IT personnel, meaning that they need to be able to work in larger teams and collaborate frequently. Cloud has also led to the growth of mobile working, so developers must be able to create flexible applications that suit this environment, as well as desktop PCs. Because the cloud has brought applications to a wider range of staff, developers must have the ability to tailor software to vastly differing needs.

The proliferation of cloud vendors over the last decade has also altered the kind of skills desired by IT managers and CTOs. So much of the IT landscape can now be outsourced, from individual applications to entire infrastructures, so in-house skill sets are changing. Capacity planning and server maintenance, for example, are now being carried out by cloud vendors, leaving IT staff to focus on other processes. Instead, businesses need employees who understand the cloud environment all the way from the network layer to the application stage. Having knowledge of load balancing, network routing, virtualisation and open source technologies is extremely useful in the modern workplace.

The shift has also led to greater emphasis on soft skills. Partnership and teamwork is vital between customer and cloud vendor so having the ability to collaborate is becoming increasingly important.

All these factors led to us developing our Residency Service, a staff augmentation service that provides technical and service specialists to perform project-related tasks or business as usual operational activities. We offer it to existing customers who are struggling to resource their IT function perhaps because they need a specific set of skills, face budget or policy limitations such as a headcount freeze, have a short-term project or are having trouble recruiting talent to a specific location.

If you’d like to discuss whether Residency Services could benefit your organisation, contact your account manager in the first instance, email avail@sungardas.com or call 0800 143 413 for more information.

Pat on the back for PAT

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We are sure you will join us in congratulating Pat Morley, our VP Global Recovery Services and Operations Director – Europe, who beat stiff competition from the Scottish Government and EE to win the prestigious ITSM Project of the Year Award 2015.

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This was awarded not for having the longest job title imaginable but for creating our internal ITIL-aligned process portal ‘AskPAT’. Process Application Tool (PAT) displays our process maps, which link to documentation on our intranet in a visual format that is easy to find and follow. It has been instrumental in educating staff on our procedures and ensuring you receive a consistent service at all Sungard Availability Services locations.

“We kicked off this project back in 2014 following an ITIL gap analysis” explains Pat Morley. “As a result of the project, which extended about 12 months, we rewrote 26 ITIL disciplines and now meet ITIL standards in the UK.”

Our award was for completing “the most successful and challenging IT Service Management project during the year,” notes the ITSM website. These industry awards highlight the achievements of IT service management individuals and teams “whose skills, commitment and imagination have marked them out for special recognition.”

Congratulations also go to Jacqueline Rhodes, Continuous Service Improvement Manager, who successfully project managed the implementation.

The IT Services Management Forum UK is the country’s leading association for organisations involved in IT service management with more than 700 member organisations spanning suppliers, user organisations, academia, consultants, standards and practice bodies, as well as individuals.

Security Again Comes to the Fore

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Welcome to the autumn edition, which is published at a time of global turmoil: unprecedented levels of migration of the non-computing variety, a rising home-grown terrorist threat and war on several fronts.

With the Ashley Madison hack still fresh in our minds, we take a look at the risks posed by cyber threats and highlight organisations’ ever–increasing exposure to Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks.

Continuing the security theme, we bring you an update on developments with the Cisco Intercloud Fabric and show how our two companies’ deepening partnership will remove the boundaries between private and public clouds while still maintaining security and control.

Talking about control, we announce the launch of Application Cloud Services for Oracle, an exciting new service that promises to put customers back in control of their Oracle assets and help them build an optimised, consumption-based environment. If you want to reduce the risk of non-compliance yet ensure you only pay for the licences you actually need, please get in touch.

I can’t finish without thanking those customers who gave their valuable time to participate in our annual customer survey. We are currently digesting the feedback but you can see the headline findings here. It was gratifying to see that almost nine out of ten are happy with customer communications such as AVAIL.

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

Keith Tilley

EVP Global Sales & Customer Service Management

Cloud Misadventures Highlight Need to Clarify Objectives Upfront

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Our research[1] into the aftermath of cloud adoption continues to attract press coverage as the findings strike a chord with the business community.

A well-conceived, properly executed cloud computing strategy can lead to greatly increased agility (64%), availability (67%) and a vastly improved ability to respond to customer and market demands (51%). However, all too often the outcome is unexpected costs, integration challenges and increased IT complexity – familiar headaches contributing to what we have termed a ‘cloud hangover’.

While decreasing their IT team’s day-to-day maintenance was a key driver in cloud adoption for 45% of businesses, over a third (35%) of IT decision makers said that adopting cloud services has, in fact, made their job more complex. Some 37% of IT decision makers complained that the cloud has made their job more stressful while just under a quarter (24%) added that their role is now more difficult since deploying cloud. In fact, 70% of businesses believe that cloud computing has simply added a new set of challenges and complexity to their workload. Almost two-thirds (65%) of organisations questioned said that integrating cloud with their legacy systems was one of their biggest IT challenges.

Part of the problem may result from an increase in cloud suppliers, with over half of respondents (55%) admitting to using three or more separate cloud platforms. Running so many systems is clearly taking its toll on organisations – with a quarter of respondents confessing to concerns that their organisation uses too many platforms.

No silver bullet

Despite being perceived by many commentators as an IT cure-all for complex and sprawling legacy systems, clearly many organisations have been left somewhat disappointed in their cloud deployments and are now rethinking their strategy.

Keith Tilley, EVP Global Sales & Customer Service Management, remarks, “First cost and now complexity – is it any wonder that organisations have been left somewhat disappointed in their cloud deployments and are now rethinking their strategy?

“In many cases, cloud computing was presented as a silver bullet for the CIO, a way to cut down on complexity and time-consuming administrative processes. The theory was that this would allow IT departments to invest their time and resources in innovation and demonstrating technology’s role as a business enabler. Instead we can see that IT departments have as much admin work as ever before, if not more. The cloud hasn’t eliminated this maintenance work, and in fact, could even be said to have added more pressures for staff when ensuring that the system remains available.

“Of course when deployed in the correct situations cloud computing can have a positive impact – helping over three quarters of organisations increase business agility, 67% their overall availability and 43% improve their response to customer and market demands.

“However, despite the undoubted benefits there is still some education to be done in ensuring the market takes a realistic view of cloud. For most organisations, the challenge of deploying cloud correctly – as part of a Hybrid IT strategy that encompasses the whole IT estate – means that going it alone is not an option.

“Working with managed services providers can help businesses adopt a tailored approach to their IT, working with both their legacy environments and cloud systems, to create an environment that is not too complex to manage.”

How has the cloud affected specific industries?

Cloud Hangover_Finance_Sector_Cartoon_600The study questioned senior IT decision makers across the spectrum of industry, and we found the cloud has had a huge impact on financial services organisations in particular.

The introduction of digital banking means transactions are no longer made during traditional working hours but run 24 hours a day, seven days a week. This new model of working can be somewhat unpredictable. Financial services organisations need to be online at all times, and able to service customers at any time, regardless of online traffic demands.

Consequently, availability and infrastructure flexibility are crucial and the cloud has made this possible. However, difficulties over interoperability (44%), IT complexity (18%) and unforeseen operational expenditure (30%) have also caused headaches for many.

 

Cloud Hangover_Retail_Sector_Cartoon_600Meanwhile the research discovered that UK retailers are spending over £260m a year on maintaining cloud services and on hidden costs, with nearly half saying it had increased the complexity of their IT environment.

 

 

 

 

Public_Sector_Cartoon_FINAL_500We have just issued the public sector headline findings and associated white paper to complement our finance and retail insights – you can see what your peers are saying and steal a march on the competition by downloading a copy of our finance or retail sector white papers.

 

 

 

Cloud Hangover in the News

You may well have seen Cloud Hangover featured in one of the almost 400 pieces of coverage generated in UK, Ireland and France – including in-depth articles in the Evening Standard, The Sunday Telegraph, TechWeekEurope, Le Monde and Les Echos, among others. It has also resonated with business leaders: The CBI has approached Sungard AS about working with the organisation as one of their technology partners as it lobbies the government on digital infrastructure issues as part of its Future Needs project.

You too can join the debate at #cloudhangover. And if you are not yet among the nearly 400 people who’ve taken our Cloud Hangover quiz you can find it here.

 

If you’d like to share your thoughts or be involved in any future research please let us know by emailing us at avail@sungardas.com

 

 

[1] 400 interviews conducted in February 2015 by Vanson Bourne on behalf of Sungard Availability Services: 150 IT decision makers from the UK, 150 from France and 50 each from Sweden and Ireland. The research involved businesses of over 500 employees across a variety of sectors including financial services, business process management and retail.

Research Reveals Insights into Fast-Growing ISV Market

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An IDG study[1] sponsored by Sungard Availability Services and Cisco into the Independent Software Vendor (ISV) market reveals the surprising finding that more ISVs (60%) rate good customer service as the route to success than having a superior all-round product (53%).

This can be attributed to the volume and diversity of SaaS services in the fiercely competitive market, which puts considerable competitive pressure on providers to offer the best combination of value, reliability, security and availability within their hosted software packages to differentiate themselves from rivals.

ISV paper_pg8_500With conservative estimates predicting the Software as a Service (SaaS) market will be worth some $50.8bn by 2018, the rewards are high for those ISVs that can differentiate themselves from competitors by offering better, or more customised, products than the opposition to entice subscribers. Consequently, two thirds of survey respondents highlighted improved service as a current business objective with 25% seeing it as their biggest priority. In contrast, growing profit margins (55%) and reducing overheads (54%) are relatively understated by ISVs, perhaps reinforcing the idea that much of SaaS provision relies on low-cost, volume sales activity based on already tight financial margins.

The research also found that ISVs’ provisioning challenges mirror customer anxieties with respondents’ top five concerns cited as being security (78%), backup, failover and business continuity (69%) availability (64%), performance (59%) and providing usage-based billing or reporting (59%).

As a result, ISV customers today place far higher demands on their SaaS provider than their own on-premise environment, demanding service level availability guarantees (66%), flexible pricing (61%) and proven datacentre infrastructure and failover capabilities (54%). With little or no perceived control over the applications they lease customers are understandably more likely to seek guarantees around application performance and reliability.

Switching to a SaaS-based delivery model is fraught with risks for the ISV. Rather than the old fixed price licence structure, SaaS tariffs are likely to vary according to customer requirements. Adding to the challenge, the pay-as-you-go, on-demand SaaS model is characterised by short-term contracts that are usually counted in months and days – or even hours and minutes – leaving customers free to switch providers at short notice causing wildly fluctuating revenue.

IDG paper_p5_500This creates a huge challenge for ISVs who must both adapt services to accommodate increased customer churn and also ensure end user data can be quickly and smoothly returned to the customer and deleted from a hosted server infrastructure to comply with new European data protection laws.

These problems have not gone unnoticed by those ISVs that participated in the survey. Almost three-quarters (73%) identified calculating the cost model as a risk and almost as many (70%) quoting changes to business processes.

 

 

Download your copy of this white paper here

[1] Source: IDG report ‘The changing landscape for business software’ – September 2015

Infrastructure Gives ISVs a Fast Track to Revenue

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With conservative estimates predicting the Software as a Service (SaaS) market is set to grow at more than 17% a year[1], ISVs cannot afford to waste energy worrying about the crucial basics of their IT infrastructure.

Instead, their focus must be on quickly developing and bringing to market pioneering new services ahead of competitors if they are to seize emerging opportunities. Recognising this, Sungard Availability Services and Cisco have joined forces to give Independent Software Vendors (ISVs) a shortcut to market by offering infrastructure already certified for many of their markets. This ultimately enables them to start earning revenue from their innovations sooner.

This is timely as new IDG research reveals that ISVs face many provisioning challenges as they strive to achieve their business goals of improving service, delivering growth and product development. Given the reputational damage that data loss and downtime can cause and the potentially large fines regulators can impose for data security breaches, physical and information security is their number one concern. Understandably, many ISVs also worry that cloud-hosted infrastructure is not able to deliver the uptime, application performance and backup capabilities to match on-premise systems, with system integration being another common worry.

But as our customers like Apply Financial, Tenet Group and Transics know from experience, ISVs can trust that their software is hosted on a world-class infrastructure based on Cisco-powered foundations. In addition, they can also benefit from added support, solutions and guidance through the award-winning Cisco Partner Program. This is designed to help ISVs develop ways to connect with their market, build strong partner relationships and receive rewards or even funding for customer activities. This last point is particularly welcome in a typically low margin cloud service environment which necessitates tight control of costs.

Switching to a SaaS-based application delivery model is not easy for ISVs, which no longer have the guarantee of annual income based on software licence renewals. For this reason, ensuring that the underlying hosting infrastructure has the flexibility to adapt to changing utilisation rates while minimising datacentre, hardware, power, cooling and maintenance costs to maximise profits is a difficult balancing act but one that is nevertheless critical to an ISV’s commercial success.

Discover how some of Sungard AS’ customers successfully overcame these difficulties by reading their case studies

If you’d like to find out more, speak to your Account Manager, call us on 1800 938 122 or email avail@sungardas.com

[1] Source: IDG report ‘The changing landscape for business software’ – September 2015

Software Provider Relies on Sungard Availability Services to Keep Its Customers Connected

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Fast-growing bxp software by All n One produces a range of award-winning Customer Engagement, Quality Assurance, eLearning and Contact Centre Management tools that promise to make customers’ businesses run better.

With numerous organisations such as Dublin City Council, Mars Ireland and 3 counting on its customisable, cloud-based system to manage contact centre operations, the company has zero tolerance for downtime. “Our clients are using our systems to talk to their customers and record conversations so they cannot have our systems fail them,” explains All n One CEO Nick Wheeler.

bxp software, in turn, depends on Sungard Availability Services to ensure high availability of its hybrid IT environment around the clock. It contracts Sungard AS’s Infrastructure as a Service to give it SLA-backed uptime of 99.95%. Sungard AS manages bxp software’s physical and virtual servers in its resilient Dublin-based Technology Centre and seamlessly delivers its systems and data back to the business. As well as all-important availability, this solution gives bxp software the flexibility and scalability it needs to support its continued growth.

When bxp software originally chose Sungard AS as its technology partner many years ago, as a relatively young company it particularly valued Sungard AS’s expertise. “One of the very real benefits we appreciated early on was the ability to get straight advice from Sungard AS without having to go to a separate consultancy firm, which was a huge bonus,” notes Philip Lacey, All n One’s IT and Projects Director. “We already had an idea how to run our IT infrastructure but Sungard AS gave us a better way to stay up.”

“Downtime simply doesn’t happen. This infrastructure has been planned to within an inch of its life.”

According to Nick Wheeler, having less than 100% service availability would be “a nightmare scenario.” He expands on this point, “It would quite possibly be cheaper to host the bxp system ourselves but this would undoubtedly be a false economy as we don’t have the knowledge, experience or in-depth support to even consider it. I need the peace of mind day in, day out that our clients will get the service they are paying for. I sleep like a log because I know our IT infrastructure is in safe hands.”

All n One video capture_500

Watch the video

As Data Protection regulations become ever more stringent, bxp software’s systems have to be exceptionally secure and all data is encrypted throughout the end-to-end process. The company’s operating system and all of its servers must be completely up-to-date to ensure resilience and security.Its trust in Sungard AS has not been misplaced – bxp software has enjoyed 100% uptime since the day it signed its first customer. Downtime in Philip Lacey’s words, “simply doesn’t happen. This infrastructure has been planned to within an inch of its life. The only thing that could take us out is a nuclear, chemical or biological attack on the site.”

Following the sun
bxp software customers across a variety of industry sectors depend on its systems to manage call centre activity and log contact with customers to help nurture relationships. These store data in one central database, which is updated in real time. Its Sungard AS solution gives bxp software the ability to run client-specific data backups at any time of the day or night for clients across different time zones.Having been growing its client base in Ireland since 2008, the Dublin-based company is pursuing its ambition to expand worldwide by offering the software to clients across the globe who want to ‘follow the sun’.

For example, at the end of the West Coast working day agents in a Silicon Valley contact centre may pass their tasks or case load to a support team in Bangalore, India to be progressed. This team, in turn, passes its work to a European-based team at the end of its own working day. In this way, work can continue around the clock.

Commenting on the relationship that has developed between All n One and Sungard AS, Philip Lacey remarks, “There’s no doubt it’s a partnership – our fortunes are inextricably linked.”

Download the case study here

New Service Helps Customers Regain Control of Their Oracle Assets

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Keeping on top of enterprise application assets can be a headache for IT departments, often requiring dedicated teams to manage licences and ensure compliance.

As many customers will be only too aware, Oracle environments are no exception and working out just what licences are needed can be a horribly complicated task. Now a new service from Sungard Availability Services promises to simplify asset management and put customers back in control of their Oracle estates.

Application Cloud Services for Oracle, a proven solution that has been available in the US for several years, delivers customers’ vital Oracle infrastructure, tailored to their specific requirements, via the cloud. After gaining an understanding of customers’ business requirements, our experienced consultants design and build optimised, consumption-based Oracle environments. This enables customers to right size their Oracle estate and mitigate the potentially costly risk of non-compliance, while at the same time ensuring they pay only for the licences they need.

In the past, one of the major hurdles was identifying exactly how much compute power each customer used on shared servers. We are able to overcome that through the use of hardware partitioning in our virtual platforms. This allows us to identify consumption by individual customer so each pays only for what they use.

Our robust infrastructure is based on a certified Oracle Red Stack configuration specifically designed for Oracle applications and databases. As the stack design is Oracle from top to bottom, this eliminates any disputes concerning compatibility or ownership of technical issues.

And, of course, it has all the resilience built-in that you would expect from any Sungard Availability Services ensuring reliability and high availability at all times.

If your organisation depends on Oracle applications and you’d like to find out more, talk to your Account Manager, email avail@sungardas.com or call 1800 938 122.

Partnership Smooths Path to Hybrid Cloud

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Our partnership with Cisco has strengthened further with plans to accelerate hybrid cloud adoption through the adoption of Cisco’s Intercloud Fabric architecture.

Cisco Intercloud Fabric, at its most basic level, is software that allows workloads to be ported across various public clouds (such as Amazon Web Services and Microsoft Azure), and back and forth between public cloud and a customer’s dedicated hosted private cloud or Sungard AS-provided private cloud.

This workload portability enables workloads across various hypervisors (a piece of computer software, firmware or hardware that creates and runs virtual machines) and removes what, until now, has been one of the many barriers to adopting a multi-use case hybrid cloud. Cisco Intercloud Fabric ultimately supports the portability of a virtual machine (VM) across an Intercloud Fabric-enabled cloud platform, with the appropriate security and control.

In addition to Cisco Intercloud Fabric, Sungard AS (a Cisco Cloud and Managed Services Program member), is also the first global service provider to deploy Cisco’s Application-Centric Infrastructure (ACI). This is important as Cisco ACI links closely to the Cisco Intercloud strategy, providing the ability to automatically provision resources based on the workload’s needs.

Cisco Intercloud Fabric and ACI very much sit together, one providing workload portability within a Cisco Intercloud-enabled cloud, the other (ACI) providing automated provisioning, that can be tied to the needs of applications sitting anywhere in the network. ACI gives customers the ability to adopt policies, which in essence can provide controls on behaviour, interoperability and security, with quality of service (QOS) standards. The two tied together form a strong foundation for hybrid cloud and the development of cloud-native applications (applications designed to run specifically in the cloud). Consequently, these two exciting developments are key components of the Sungard AS cloud services portfolio and our adoption of this technology will allow customers to truly realise, embrace and adopt a hybrid cloud strategy.

“We’re helping customers and partners extend their IT infrastructures into the Sungard AS global cloud by integrating the Cisco Intercloud Fabric into our solutions portfolio,” said Jack Dziak, Executive Vice President, Global Products, Sungard AS. “Cisco Intercloud Fabric provides organisations the secure cloud services they need anywhere in the world, giving them their choice of using the cloud the way they want it. This in turn enhances the overall value proposition Sungard AS provides our clients, which is a win-win for everyone,” he added.

Sungard AS already offers a full suite of Cisco Power Cloud services including Infrastructure-as-a-Service, Recover2Cloud® and SAP HANA. As a Cisco technology partner for more than 15 years, we and our channel partners are uniquely positioned to provide Intercloud Fabric innovations for many shared customers.

“Our customers face the biggest challenges in hybrid cloud adoption,” said Gee Rittenhouse, Senior Vice President/General Manager of Cisco’s Cloud and Virtualization Group. “We are excited to have Sungard AS bring Internet scale and globally secure solutions for hyper distributed applications and data. With Cisco Intercloud Fabric technology unlocking the potential of the hybrid cloud, Sungard AS is showing its strength as a global Cloud Provider by helping customers adopt hybrid clouds worldwide.”

We are currently validating our Intercloud Fabric Architecture environments and demonstrating how these will integrate with Cisco customers and partners looking to connect private and public clouds to meet requirements for resource management, data availability, datacentre capacity challenges and seasonal spikes.

If you’d like to know more, talk to your Account Manager, call 1800 938 122 or email avail@sungardas.com

 

Customer Survey Results In

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Hot off the press, we are delighted to be able to share with you the headline findings from this year’s Customer Satisfaction Survey which has once again included a number of Sungard Availability Services Ireland customers. First of all we’d like to extend our thanks to all of the 200 customers who took the time out of their busy schedules to give us their feedback on how we’re performing, what we’re doing well and where we have room for improvement.

There was a roughly equal split of Recovery Services (169) and Managed Services (173) subscribers with the sample also including 17 new customers. Respondents also included 24 cloud subscribers, 22 Consulting and 12 software subscribers. As in previous years, the format was a telephone interview covering all aspects of interaction with Sungard Availability Services from initial contact through the complete lifecycle of engagement and operational delivery and, in addition to scoring our overall performance, valuable feedback was provided in the form of customer comments.

Although there has been some movement to certain individual results, 95% of customers questioned said they would continue to subscribe, a virtually identical figure to last year, and 94% would recommend us to others. This led to a ‘Net Promoter’ score (calculated as the number of promoters less detractors) of 79.4%, which is slightly down on 2014’s figure of 82% but still a very high result when compared with the industry benchmark.

The results show that there are several areas in which we need to improve our performance but we are pleased that, overall, those customers questioned were satisfied with the most important aspects of the Sungard AS service.

However, we were disappointed to learn that the area of ‘Contracts, invoicing and administration’ remains an area that still requires improvement with a satisfaction score of 88.9% and we will be addressing this. You also felt the initial on boarding process has room for improvement and we will be looking closely at your comments regarding this area.

You rate our initial sales contact highly, giving us a satisfaction rating of 93.8%, and sales contact overall a score of 90% – a small improvement year-on-year. Our ‘input to the technical solution’ also scored highly at 90.8%.

We were thrilled to see excellent satisfaction levels (93.1%) with our Managed Services and Cloud Services (92.3%) although many respondents were less impressed with our customer portal.

Project management is another area clearly indicated for investigation and improvement planning with a slippage recorded in satisfaction levels compared with 2014’s figure of 73%.

Service Management scored highly with a 93.3% satisfaction rating and many positive comments including “they have the ability to understand, respond and be flexible” and good at “owning and resolving issues”.

Recovery Services continued to enjoy excellent satisfaction levels (95.9%) with consistently high average scores recorded. This was reflected in the feedback on our handling of alerts and invocations. Altogether, 41 of the customers surveyed had placed Sungard AS on alert while six had invoked. All reported that they were satisfied, with 41 saying they were very satisfied.

As in 2014, excellent satisfaction levels were recorded (98.4%) with our site facilities. This year a new question was introduced regarding access and security at our sites and this received a 96.8% rating.

Those surveyed gave Sungard AS marketing and communications a thumbs up (89.3%) with encouraging comments on AVAIL’s new online format including “better, more accessible and easier to navigate”, “articles are interesting and well researched” and “informative, a good update as to where Sungard is going.”

We were particularly pleased to see that of the 43 customers who had contacted us in the last 12 months you feel our handling of issues and problems has improved significantly (90.5%).

Most importantly of all, almost 9/10 of those customers questioned said that in the event of a disaster they are confident that Sungard AS would fulfil their recovery needs.

As in previous years, we asked survey participants for their views on for key statements and are pleased with the responses:

  • Sungard AS is a name I can always trust (168 agreed)
  • Sungard AS always deliver on what they promise (162 agreed)
  • if a problem arises, I can always count on Sungard AS to reach a fair and satisfactory solution (172 agreed)
  • Sungard AS always treats me with respect (194 agreed)

We will now dig deeper into the survey results to see what lessons can be learned and how we can improve those areas highlighted as concerns. Thank you once again to all the customers who took time to give us their feedback and we will share news of developments in future editions of AVAIL.

If you would like to share your opinions on any aspect of our service or have any questions, please email David Parr, Head of Customer Services, at david.parr@sungardas.com

Serious About Innovation

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Some years ago Sungard AS made the strategic decision to protect our intellectual property through filing patent applications and maintaining trade secrets. To this end, we created a formal patent process to encourage employee creativity and reward our people for their inventions and innovations.

Sign_500“Our customers want us to bring our heritage and capability of running highly available systems with them as they move into the new world of applications running in the cloud. We want to do it in a way that represents best practice and our in-depth knowledge of how to run critical systems,” explains Josh Crowe, Chief Technology Officer for Sungard AS.

“This is about more than gaining a piece of paper from a government entity but capturing something we are really good at and turning it into a protectable innovation that allows us to differentiate our offerings in the marketplace.”

Patent Hall of Fame_Josh Crowe_500As a result of our patent programme, 11 patents have so far been awarded to Sungard AS for new methods and concepts developed by employees that help solve customers’ business problems in various ways. These include an RPO analysis tool for our Recover2Cloud service, a system to automate infrastructure workflows as atomic transactions and discovering the boot order sequence of servers belonging to an application.

Spate of Hacks Show No Company is Safe

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Infidelity website Ashley Madison may be the unfortunate company that grabbed the headlines for weeks this summer when its website was hacked and member details published on the TOR network but the prevalence of cyberattacks today means no organisation can afford to be complacent.

All data breaches can be costly and cause reputational damage but the very nature of Ashley Madison’s business – slogan “Life is short. Have an affair” – made this case particularly embarrassing for the company’s 38 million customers. It is already said to have led to a number of divorces and, tragically, one suicide. It is also potentially ruinous to Ashley Madison itself. After all, how many married thrill-seekers will now entrust their personal details to the company after such a high profile breach of trust?

Preliminary analysis of the leaked data revealed that almost 60,000 members have addresses in Washington DC and more than 15,000 accounts were linked to a.gov or a .mil email address, which could lead to repercussions not only at home but also in the workplace. The breach makes employees vulnerable to being blackmailed for further details that can be sold to a competitor or foreign government for considerably more than could be obtained from an individual.

Of course, Ashley Madison is not an isolated case. At around the same time it was attacked, the personal details of an estimated 18 million government employees were compromised by a cyber breach at the Office of Personnel Management (OPM) in the US. In this case the culprits are believed to have previously hacked into an OPM contractor and built their own backdoor access to the system, armed with high-level system administrator access. The theory is that these security credentials were then used to break into the OPM system.

All of this hacked information can be correlated so taking these two examples, we have the names and job titles of security-cleared government officials, which can be matched against data from the illicit affairs website for the purposes of coercion or blackmail. And, of course, these are just the more obvious ways of using and abusing the data.

While the UK suffers more cyberattacks than any other European country and is the second most targeted nation in the world[1], cyberattacks are a worldwide problem. Already this year, 81% of large companies have reported a security breach in 2015, costing an average of £600,000 to £1.5 million. And the rate of data breaches shows no signs of slowing down.

In August this year the details of up to 2.4 million Carphone Warehouse customers were exposed when hackers accessed names, addresses and dates of birth and bank details, together with encrypted credit card data for up to 90,000 customers, in a security breach.

As reported previously in AVAIL, increasingly, breaches take the form of Direct Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks. These employ Volumetric Attack techniques to cause the cyber equivalent of a traffic jam. These seriously hamper an organisation’s ability to respond to customers as its outbound network quickly becomes congested. Worse still, the affected servers can be commandeered to participate in DDoS attacks on others.

All organisations, public and private, face a constant battle to stay one step ahead of hackers who continue to find new ways to compromise their systems and steal confidential data. Cyber criminals are becoming increasingly effective, only needing to send 20 emails for every successful attempt to defraud or hack their targets. They are no longer the relatively harmless geeks of yesteryear rising to a technical challenge but more often organised crime gangs motivated by the prospect of financial reward.

Some of the most successful attacks rely on exploiting employee behaviour to circumvent your organisation’s defences. A common tactic is to deliberately drop a memory stick in a company’s car park, lift or other public area. (Interestingly, pink is apparently the most effective colour to use). Human nature being what it is, there is a strong chance one of your employees will pick it up and insert it into their PC’s USB port out of curiosity. They will inevitably click on an intriguingly named file or funny picture and, in doing so, unwittingly spread the executable code it links to throughout your network.

With the knowledge and opportunity to leave a ‘back door’ to your systems open, contractors and disgruntled or ex-employees are an organisation’s soft underbelly. Such vulnerabilities mean companies are frequently held to ransom. Mike Smith, Product Development Manager, Networks & Security for Sungard AS, cites one example of a customer he helped to prevent a threatened DDoS attack if a demand for payment of 50 bitcoins (around £9,000) was not met – and this is a far from unique occurrence.

Countering the threat

So what is the solution? According to Mike Smith, “The technology is out there to minimise the majority of threats but in our experience most customers are selective about the lengths they will go to, balancing the risk against the cost of preventive measures. They look at where they will get ‘the most bang for their buck’.”

He points out, “While these days a firewall is the norm and most organisations will also protect their web servers with a web application firewall, it’s not just a question of buying a few products. Companies need to be abreast of the latest global threats, understand where their vulnerabilities lie and implement a multi-layered strategy that includes active 24-hour monitoring of their IT environment.”

Sungard Availability Services partners with carefully selected security specialists, each expert in their particular field, to offer a comprehensive range of Managed Security Services designed to improve protection from the perimeter to the core. DDoS mitigation, which can be provided to Sungard AS customers as a standalone service through monthly subscription, is among the services offered yet despite the growing scale of the threat, astonishingly this has been taken up by only around 2% of Managed Services customers.

In this digital age, defending an enterprise is a far more complex and challenging task than ever before. Yet never has it been more important.

Would you like to find out more?
If you’d like to explore how Managed Security Services from Sungard AS could benefit your business, speak to your Account Manager, call us on 1800 938 122 or email avail@sungardas.com

 

[1] Source: 2015 Internet Security Report – Symantec

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.

2015 OFF TO A FLYING START

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Welcome to the first edition of AVAIL in 2015!

In our first story Keith Tilley, EVP Global Sales and Customer Service Management, makes his predictions for the next 12 months and looks at how businesses can navigate what looks set to be an IT minefield of a year.  While on the subject of strategy, elsewhere we share the findings of a new report into disruptive technologies that are forcing organisations to make strategic changes.

I’m pleased to announce no fewer than four new Sungard AS services launching in the first half of the year, starting with Desktop as a Service, which has been developed in collaboration with some of the biggest names in the business and we believe beats anything in the market today. We’ll be announcing details later this month but you can be the first to find out about it here. Then there’s the FCA Assessment Service, which will objectively compare your company’s resilience against specific regulatory requirements, Oracle Cloud Service, a more cost-effective secure and flexible way to run your Oracle applications and, last but not least, our Residency Service, which could be the answer to your skills gap.

In home news Sungard AS Ireland has been awarded ISO 27001:2013 certification, giving you the reassurance it achieves the highest levels of information security management. In the UK, Sungard AS UK is delighted to be accepted on to G-Cloud 6, which places them among a handful of cloud providers accredited to offer ‘Official Sensitive’ (formerly IL3) cloud services.

From France we bring you news of an innovative peer support programme that gives CIOs an unexpected ally – would it work here in Ireland I wonder?

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

Gary Watson

General Manager Ireland

HOW ENTERPRISE IT WILL NAVIGATE THE IT MINEFIELD

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By Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President, Global Sales & Customer Services, Sungard Availability Services

The IT landscape is becoming even more complex. It seems every year businesses are confronted with more issues and potential pitfalls to navigate around – not only to remain competitive, but to avoid loss of reputation and customer trust.

Upcoming legislation like the EU Data Protection directive will mean more pressure to secure mission-critical data and CIOs must ensure they do everything in their power to protect customer information. It’s the same story in the public sector: with ministers under increased scrutiny thanks to the 2015 election, mistakes and data losses will simply not be tolerated.

Alongside increased pressure on governance and compliance, organisations are expecting IT departments to make a greater contribution to business objectives – difficult when so much time and resources are tied up simply keeping the lights on.

The top six trends shaping enterprise IT in 2015:

1. Increased Value in Services:
The cost of raw infrastructure is already plummeting thanks to price-wars between the biggest providers so customers now look beyond raw infrastructure for value.

But with many IT departments moving away from the traditional maintenance model and looking to demonstrate business value through innovation and a focus on the application-layer, organisations no longer have the expertise in-house.

Recent research shows a rise in the number of businesses turning to MSPs(1). With IT priorities shifting from reducing costs to creating agile, flexible work environments, businesses will look for technology partners capable of helping them to deliver their IT strategy as well as keeping the lights on.

2. Investing in Orchestration
With their traditional role shifting, we will start to see CIOs throw out the outdated ‘command and control’ model of infrastructure governance. Instead, IT leaders will embrace data centre orchestration technologies that offer seamless infrastructure performance with data moving freely across hybrid IT infrastructures.

This will allow CIOs to continue to pull away from the ‘dirty’ infrastructure work, focusing on demonstrating real value to the business and delivering a competitive edge.

3. Increased data compliance pressure
Companies’ data protection and compliance policies are coming under increased scrutiny and this will only intensify with new EU laws on data regulation coming in 2017. These will significantly increase businesses’ responsibility for critical data with potentially heavy sanctions for mishandling, or failing to take every step possible to protect it.  This ruling will greatly impact business models based on use or management of data such as cloud, Bring-Your-Own-Device and datacentre storage.

We will see more debates around whose responsibility this is. MSPs should prepare for a huge influx of queries from customers about their data so a thorough understanding of the new regulation will be crucial. 2017 might seem far-off but the radical legal changes will require organisations to work hard over the next two years to have a chance of complying and avoiding substantial fines.

4. The general election
With politicians already limbering up for the election, IT service providers need to ready themselves for the imminent debate. Austerity will continue, with the government looking to reduce spend dramatically while simultaneously demonstrating value to the public.

And thanks to the sensitive nature of government data, vendors will need to jump through hoops regarding infrastructure considerations and information security classifications.  For smaller Independent Software Vendors this could be a problem and it’s one we’ll see solved through high profile partnerships with MSPs that provide not only the technology, but also the accreditations needed to bid successfully for government contracts.

5. The rise of Desktop as a Service
2015 will create even greater demand for Desktop as a Service (DaaS). Employees’ expectations are rising and with more and more ‘Generation Y’ workers entering the workforce, IT departments are finding it increasingly challenging to keep pace with technology demands(2). For some millennials, the tech package combined with flexible working practices is a major factor when considering potential employers.  This trend is only set to grow, especially with further adoption of flexible working laws.

All employees now expect to access critical data and key applications from any location or device and companies need to ensure they make headway towards providing this.

6. Coping with Cloud Complexity
With over three-quarters of UK organisations formally adopting at least one cloud-based service, cloud is now mainstream.  However, while the cloud initially promised to cut IT complexity, many CIOs have found themselves with a new set of challenges.  Many early cloud adopters rushed in and only looked at the short-term benefits  so now find themselves caught up in an intricate network of vendors, none of which have integrated clouds.

We’ll see businesses looking to extricate themselves from multiple IT environments – streamlining their estate as they understand that cloud computing is not a technical achievement, but a tool to deliver a specific business outcome.

Forward-looking CIOs will see that the key to successful cloud deployments is responsibly consuming cloud alongside the business’s other physical and virtual environments.  Hybrid IT will precede truly integrated Hybrid Cloud, and may, indeed, be essential to it.

Download Sungard AS’s ‘CIO Perspectives on Digital Disruption’ report by IDG Market Insight

 

(1) IDG Market Insight, CIO Perspectives on Digital Disruption: 45% of CIOs would explore the possibility of working more closely with hosting and MSPs
(2) IDG Market Insight, CIO Perspectives on Digital Disruption: 72% CIOs cite support for remote and/or mobile working as very or extremely important

DISRUPTIVE TECHNOLOGIES FORCE STRATEGY CHANGE

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A new report(1) commissioned by Sungard Availability Services reveals that data analytics and big data are the most disruptive technologies driving change in their organisations, cited by over half of IT directors.The survey of 100 IT chiefs in small and medium-sized companies with between 500 and 1,000 employees and large companies of up to 100,000 employees, and in some cases more, reveals that digital disruption is becoming the norm.

Other key disruptive technologies identified by IT chiefs include bring your own device, or BYOD, (48%); social media (47%); and a mobile workforce (40%).

However, while constant change is unavoidable, the survey reveals that IT leaders are understandably anxious to ensure any transition is pain-free, without disruption to users and a minimal risk of system downtime.

They know that in a world that never sleeps, IT downtime means losing customers and business to rivals. Over a third (38%) of CIOs demand less than one hour of downtime a year for mission-critical IT systems; 8% require downtime to be no higher than one minute a year!

The research shows that increasing volumes of structured and unstructured data, and the adoption of new ways of working and interacting with customers, present opportunities and challenges that IT must respond to with agility, and without business disruption.

The survey reveals over a third of IT chiefs regard software as a service, or SaaS, (33%) and cloud infrastructure services (35%) as disruptive technologies, particularly when IT departments are migrating from their legacy technologies.

The most popular investments for around half of respondents is business intelligence technology (46%), cloud computing (44%), mobile computing (43%) and updating legacy hardware (43%).

Other plans include updating operating systems (27%); developing social networking technology (21%); moving to an internal service model provider (17%); and, perhaps with more optimism than some in the current climate of austerity, increasing the IT budget (14%).

Shadow IT is a thorny topic for many IT chiefs, with nearly a quarter (22%) actively discouraging other departments from deploying their own IT systems. For just under half (46%) of respondents, the IT department is responsible for all the IT in their organisation. Interestingly, more than a tenth (11%) of IT chiefs are aware of the existence of shadow IT but turn a blind eye, which has potential implications for security and efficiency.

The report shows organisations are not embracing change for the sake of change but are pursuing disruptive technologies for the identified benefits they can bring. For instance, improved customer experience is a goal for nearly three-quarters (73%) of organisations.

The study also looks at corporate attitudes towards social media, the changing role of the CIO and differences between ‘digital natives’ and dare we say more mature users.

Download the report here

(1) TechTarget – Disruptive Technologies – a Catalyst for Innovation

SUNGARD AS IRELAND GAINS ISO 27001 CERTIFICATION

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We’re delighted to share the news with you that, in January this year, Sungard Availability Services Ireland gained ISO 27001:2013 certification, signifying that it achieves the highest levels of information security management.

ISO_27001_2013_CERTIFIED_LOGO_RGB

By attaining the standard for its enterprise-grade shared private cloud environment and managed service offering, Sungard AS Ireland has proved to an independent third party that it has developed and implemented a best-in-class information security management system, both for itself and its customers.

The standard gives organisations an internationally recognised, independent verification that Sungard AS is able to securely manage information, maintaining the confidentiality, integrity and availability of all data. This will give added reassurance to our Ireland customer base that their mission-critical information is both safe and readily accessible.

“Ireland has established itself not only as a technology hub in its own right but as an access point for US businesses looking to enter the European market. And as host to the European headquarters of some of the world’s most influential IT companies, data protection in the region is vitally important,” explained Andrew Barber, chief security officer, EMEA and APAC for Sungard AS.

“Being endorsed by an independent and internationally recognised body will bring further piece of mind to customers in Ireland and assure them that as their partner of choice for cloud or managed hosting, resilience and information availability is built into all aspects of our business, from strategic planning to day-to-day operations.”

 

DESKTOP AS A SERVICE WITH 100% AVAILABILITY

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Sungard Availability Services’ Desktop as a Service (DaaS), developed in collaboration with market leaders Cisco, Citrix and NetApp, is now available. It gives employees full access to all of their business applications, enabling them to work wherever they want. At the same time it allows firms to exploit and adapt to seasonal peaks and troughs in demand, quickly provisioning staff with the applications they need whenever and wherever they need them.

Virtual Desktops has been around for a while but it’s only now that technological developments, better security and more competitive pricing have finally enabled DaaS to finally become mainstream, with 2015 dubbed ‘The year of the virtual desktop’.

Sungard AS’s DaaS credentials are well-proven. With decades of experience building resilient productions and recovery environments, we already have the knowledge, skills and infrastructure in place, making DaaS a natural progression of our existing services.

Like all other Sungard AS managed services, a combination of people, processes and technology are our differentiators:

  • Collaboratively designed and built by the world’s best vendors
  • Consultancy-led service to help customers avoid VDI pitfalls
  • World-class resilient hosting infrastructure
  • Choice of 100% and 99.95% Availability SLAs
  • IT department support
  • End user support
  • Seamless recovery into our Workplace Recovery Centres

It all adds up to a service that helps customers overcome the scale and complexity of migrating to a virtual desktop environment that is highly resilient and results in a great user experience.

DaaS typically cuts recovery time into workplace facilities by more than 60% to no more than a couple of hours after the initial operating system images have been rolled out.

DaaS is already attracting considerable interest from companies keen to reduce their cost of ownership, eliminate the annual PC refresh cycle and gain greater control and security over their desktops. Designed for companies with 200 or more PCs, the first step in the move to DaaS is an assessment by a senior consultant to evaluate whether the service is right for the organisation.

Sungard AS’s consultancy-led service can help both firms who eagerly adopted DaaS in its infancy but perhaps underspecified their requirements resulting in a sluggish service, and those that have been wary of dipping their toes in the water until now. Whatever stage a company is at, as their DaaS partner we can help them avoid the pitfalls inherent in attempting to implement DaaS by themselves.

Reasons to choose Desktop as a Service from Sungard AS:

  • Flexibility – production and recovery locations at whichever location suits you
  • Peace of mind – built by some of the biggest names in the business: Cisco, Citrix, NetApp and Sungard AS
  • True resilience – 100% SLA-backed levels of availability
  • Seamlessly integrated production and recovery environments
  • Scalable infrastructure delivered over a cloud environment
  • Transformative consultancy that doesn’t merely reproduce what you have but improves on it, adding value

 

Download our whitepaper to  find out what 110 C-Level executives had to say about their current usage and attitudes to desktop virtualisation technology

If you’d like to discuss whether Sungard AS’s new Desktop as a Service could benefit your organisation email avail@sungardas.com or call 0800 143 413

HOW WOULD THE FCA VIEW YOUR RESILIENCE?

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Sungard Availability Services is launching a new service for financial services firms that need to demonstrate that they have effective resilience and continuity capabilities and that there is good governance in place – particularly in terms of IT that supports the business.

This FCA Assessment Service is designed to give customers an independent view of their business continuity programme’s maturity and its alignment with FCA/PRA regulatory requirements. It specifically looks at areas that have been highlighted by the FCA as key areas of concern across the sector:

  • Management leadership and commitment – assessing senior management’s understanding of the issues and the degree to which they are providing a mandate and momentum for continuity and resilience.
  • Policy and requirements – reviewing the organisation’s formal approach to continuity and resilience, together with the mechanisms used to define requirements and whether these are appropriate.
  • Understanding critical IT and risks – whether the organisation understands how IT supports the critical business processes that are the subject of regulation and does it understand the various criticalities within IT? Is there a clear IT operational risk appetite or planning to mitigate the potential impact of systems outages on consumers?
  • Strategies for continuity and resilience – principally as they apply to IT. Has the company approached the choice of strategies in the right way and are the appropriate strategies in place?
  • Monitor and review – how is exercising and testing undertaken? Are the right processes in place to determine the scope and objectives of testing? What happens after testing? How frequently does testing take place and what is tested? How is information fed back in improving the continuity and resilience of the business?

We then produce a report that identifies gaps, recommends remedial work that should be completed to close the gaps and provides a roadmap of priorities.

The new service is likely to appeal to small and medium-sized financial services firms who are unsure whether the BCM programme they have in place is effective or who want guidance on the programme of activities they need to implement to assure the regulator of their preparedness and mitigate the threat of a potentially costly Section 166 notice being imposed.

If you’d like to discuss whether the FCA Assessment Service could benefit your organisation, contact your Sungard AS account manager or email us at avail@sungardas.com.

A BETTER WAY TO RUN ORACLE APPLICATIONS & DATABASES

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If your company’s applications use Oracle, then Sungard Availability Services can now offer you a more cost-effective, secure and flexible way to run them. Our new Oracle Cloud Service brings you all the benefits of market-leading Oracle software with the high availability, security and flexibility that come as standard with any Sungard AS offering.

Available from April, our Oracle Cloud Service is specifically designed to run your Oracle applications and databases, either in production or for disaster recovery, alleviating the headaches of infrastructure maintenance, updates and lifecycle management. And because the service is provided by Sungard AS you have the assurance of the high performance levels needed to support enterprise business applications and databases backed by cast-iron Service Level Agreements.
As an Oracle Gold Partner with a proven track record going back over 15 years, Sungard AS is a provider you can trust.

The service is built on certified Oracle Red Stack and delivered to you from world-class cloud hosted environments, located in multiple Sungard AS UK data centres, collaboratively designed and accredited by Oracle.  The service is also available from Sungard AS North America data centres.

The cloud service/utility model converts the cost from the capital budget to become an operating expense. This avoids you having to tie up valuable capital and frees your in-house IT team to focus on projects that add value to your business rather than spend their time on routine housekeeping tasks.

With a choice of availability options, contract periods and range of add-on services, the service is cost-effective and highly flexible. This means you can size your environment around what you need today rather than at some distant point in the future. This extends to licences too as the Sungard AS Oracle Cloud Service is fully compliant and optimised for Oracle licensing. Sungard AS offers optional consultancy services that provide a detailed analysis of current and future licence usage, avoiding overprovisioning.

Think of our Oracle Cloud service like a giant cake. Just as you may only want a slice rather than the whole calorie-laden offering, you may not need all the pricey licences that typically come as standard with your server. By satisfying your desire for an Oracle Cloud Service through a managed service provider like Sungard AS you are freed to pay only for the precise number of licences you actually need.

In fact, simplified deployment, thanks to on-demand provisioning and seamless ramp-up of resources as and when you need them, is one of the big benefits of buying your Oracle services in this way.

Another is that it resolves Oracle support and licence constraints for those customers who have non-Oracle environments.

“Mention the Sungard AS name in the context of security and that issue’s off the table.”
Eric Andresen, VP Support Operations, DAZ Systems Inc

Benefits at a glance:

  • Gives you greater control, security and management over your Oracle environment
  • Avoids the build costs of additional in-house data centre space and resilience measures
  • Converts hefty capital expenditure to a predictable monthly operating expense
  • Increases the resilience of your organisation
  • Frees your in-house IT team to work more productively
  • Allows you to scale up, or down, in line with business demands
  • Integrates seamlessly with a wide range of optional services including Sungard Managed Cloud, Managed Database Service, Managed OS, Vaulting Services, Recovery as a Service, Network Connectivity, Security Services and Desktop as a Service

If you’d like to find out more, download our brochure, email us at avail@sungardas.com or call us on 0800 143 413.

SHORTAGE OF IT SPECIALISTS STARTS TO BITE

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With employment in the IT industry predicted to grow the current shortage of skilled IT professionals is set to persist. Organisations are now paying the price for laying off experienced staff when the recession hit, the preference over the past decade for outsourcing overseas rather than developing home grown IT talent and the nation’s failure to nurture advanced STEM (science, technology, engineering and maths) skills.

As firms enter the post-recession economy, priorities have shifted from cost control into driving significant technology and transformation initiatives that will allow them to achieve a faster time to market and gain a competitive advantage. IT must respond to business needs as they strive for greater productivity. This is despite increasing difficulty in acquiring specialised expertise, especially in the UK where the digital economy is growing exponentially.

In fact, a recent survey by the CBI showed that 39% of firms are already struggling to recruit workers with the advanced technical skills they need, and 41% believe the shortage will persist over the next three years. Consequently, analyst Gartner suggests eight out of ten companies are likely to find their growth plans curtailed by a lack of skilled data centre specialists by 2016(1).

Against this backdrop Sungard Availability Services has developed its new Residency Service. This is a staff augmentation service that will provide technical and service specialists to perform project-related tasks or business as usual operational activities for existing customers struggling to resource their IT function for a variety of reasons.  This might be because:

  • They are trying to find a specific set of skills
  • Have a short term project
  • Trouble recruiting talent to a specific location
  • Budget or policy limitations such as a headcount freeze

Sungard AS customers such as Serco have found the benefits of a Residency Service include:

  • Faster time to engagement: The time to engagement for placing a resource in our customers can be measured in days rather than weeks
  • Better control of staff: The customer’s IT department manages the resources from beginning to end within a project but is able to engage Sungard AS should any situation occur to resolve issues quickly and effectively
  • Improved integration with internal processes: It can be easier to integrate staff augmentation resources with existing business processes than align those processes with external project teams.
  • Leverages existing resources: By adding new skill sets to the team, a company can take advantage of both external and internal resources for the completion of their IT projects.
  • Access to specialist expertise: When gaps in a project team require specialist skills, staff augmentation can efficiently fill them. As Sungard AS is vendor-impartial our staff are multi skilled, accustomed to working in a multiple vendor environment.
  • Rapidly changing staffing needs: Companies with staffing needs in constant flux can meet those needs through staff augmentation. It’s relatively easy to scale up or down to match demand.
  • Reduced cost of acquiring skills: Avoids the cost of investing in internal skill development.
  • Reduce employer burdens: Avoids costs and liabilities of direct employees.
  • Help meeting aggressive project timelines: When an active project has a need for more resources in order to be completed on time, staff augmentation is typically the best option (and sometimes the only option).
  • Greater internal acceptance: Existing employees are less likely to feel threatened by augmenting staff with a few individuals than by outsourcing entire projects.
  • Ease of adoption: It’s generally easier to adopt a staff augmentation model than a project outsourcing model. Companies are already used to hiring employees so staff augmentation is just a small shift from what companies already do.

The Residency Service is being rolled out in the first half of this year. If you’d like to discuss whether it could benefit your organisation, contact your account manager or email us at avail@sungardas.com for more information.

 

(1) Source: Gartner – 24 September 2014 http://www.gartner.com/newsroom/id/2853917

 

PROGRAMME OFFERS SUPPORT TO ISOLATED CIOs

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Sungard Availability Services in France has launched a programme designed to provide support to CIOs following research that revealed they often feel isolated in their role. Their first 100 days in office – the very time when they are making critical decisions transforming their organisation’s IT – were highlighted as a particularly difficult period.

France marketing manager Emmanuelle Servaye who pioneered the programme explains, “CIOs feel they cannot talk freely to their C-Suite colleagues who do not appreciate the immense challenges they face. Generally, a CIO can’t talk about IT transformation with his or her team due to the sensitivity over jobs, nor can they open up to relative strangers at business networking events. So I saw an opportunity to support the CIO and position ourselves as a trusted partner here to help.”

The programme provides peer support, advice and mentoring to help CIOs perform effectively and be seen by their colleagues to add value to the business by pursuing a strategy of enterprise availability. It consists of three channels:

  • A vibrant online communityfeaturing informative articles on availability and IT transformation issues, as well as general business topics of interest to CIOs with articles and comment contributed by outside companies and CIOs themselves. Somewhat worryingly, the most popular article so far is titled ‘How to detect the first signs of burnout’ so the site seems to provide a much-needed supportive, nurturing environment with lots of help, advice and tips for overworked and unappreciated IT leaders.
  • A guide for CIOs on what to do in their first 100 days in office, which offers expert help to CIOs with their IT transformation challenges.
  • A unique peer mentoring programme. This scheme, the first of its kind in France, has been eagerly greeted by both CIOs wanting to be mentored and business people keen to act as mentors. Ten pairs have been matched on the basis of compatibility, location and industry sector from the floods of people who applied and are now working together.

If successful in France, the CIO programme may be extended to other countries across Europe. But would you want this? Would it help? We’d love to hear your feedback so please do email us at avail@sungardas.com.

Download the First 100 Days guide here

UK News: G-CLOUD 6 ACCEPTANCE

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Sungard Availability Services UK has been successful in being accepted on to ‘G-Cloud 6’, the latest version of the UK Government’s cloud framework which took effect last month. This places Sungard AS UK among a select handful of cloud providers that are accredited to offer ‘Official Sensitive’ (previously known as ‘IL3’) cloud services.

It means Sungard AS UK are authorised to offer our portfolio of managed services to public sector organisations through the Digital Marketplace (formerly called the CloudStore). This is the shop window not only for central government departments but also other public bodies such as local councils, the emergency services, education authorities and the NHS.

Sungard AS UK has already seen some large, high profile contract wins as a result of G-Cloud accreditation. These include Border Force (part of the Home Office), Her Majesty’s Passport Office where they are working with a third party to provide a facial recognition solution, and the replacement programme for the old GWS platform which is migrating all data to Sungard AS infrastructure.

Sungard As’s proven ability to deliver scalable hybrid solutions, collaborative approach and flexibility were cited as being key factors in the contract wins.

To find out more email us at avail@sungardas.com

DATES FOR YOUR DIARY

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We are delighted to announce more confirmed dates in the Sungard Availability Services 2015 events programme:

Cloud Expo Europe

11 – 12 March 2015
Excel, London
Sungard Availability Services will be sponsoring and participating in Cloud Expo Europe – Europe’s biggest and best attended cloud conference and exhibition. Visitors will have the opportunity to hear from over 300 leading speakers, including Sungard AS, who make up the conference programme and learn firsthand from dozens of case-studies including major blue chips, the public sector as well as dynamic SMEs.

Our very own Metin Algir will talk about ‘Architecting for the future with hybrid IT’ in the Virtualisation, Infrastructure & Storage theatre from 12.15pm to 12.40pm on Wednesday 11 March and from 10.45am to 11.10am on Thursday 12 March in the Cloud Innovations theatre.

Register for your free ticket here and come and visit us on stand 760!

Cloud Banking Europe

14 and 15 April 2015
QEII Conference Centre, London, SW1
Sungard AS will play an active role in this first large-scale gathering of industry experts in the cloud banking domain worldwide. Cloud specialists Phil Laslett and Metin Algir will be sharing their knowledge and experience in a thought-provoking presentation titled ‘Balancing aspiration with reality: hybrid IT experiences in a changing world’. We will also run a cloud problem-solving clinic and host a 60 minute lunchtime briefing with the CBI.

If you’re in the banking sector and want to know more about how cloud computing can help you meet the demands of increasingly tech-savvy customers, this is an event not to be missed. Come and see us on stand 7!

WELCOME TO THE WINTER EDITION OF AVAIL

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This issue seems to have a theme of ‘change’. An interesting Sungard Availability Services-commissioned report that reveals the extent to which cloud computing has been a disruptive technology, radically changing the business landscape.

Elsewhere, we share the findings of several studies: one looks at IT governance in a changing world, another explores how an organisation’s ability to change is critical to business survival while a third report reveals that the swift migration to the cloud we have seen over recent years is continuing unabated.

In home news, we have just launched two new services in Dublin with the introduction of DDoS (Distributed Denial of Service) and our globally recognised dedicated workplace in Dublin with the opening of two new customer suites.

Please note that from 1st January all Sungard Availability Services email addresses change to @sungardas.com. We’d hate your emails to bounce back so please update your address books to ensure important messages to your Sungard AS contacts continue to be delivered.

One thing that remains unchanged is our commitment to continually improving the service we give you. In this regard, we bring you the headline results of this year’s customer survey – thank you if you’re one of the 201 people who took the time to give us your feedback.

As always, I hope you enjoy this issue and my team welcomes feedback on any aspect of the magazine, particularly your views on its new online format. Just send your comments to the editor at AVAIL@sungardas.com

All that remains is for me to wish you a happy and peaceful festive season on behalf of all of the Sungard AS team!

Gary Watson
General Manager Ireland

BRANDTONE RELIES ON CLOUD TO CONNECT BRANDS TO CONSUMERS

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Mobile marketing specialist Brandtone chose Sungard Availability Services’ Managed Private Cloud to host the large databases of shoppers’ details it builds through its marketing campaigns delivered by mobile phone worldwide. The fast-growing firm engages with close to one billion consumers globally on behalf of household names such as Carling Black Label, Dove, Knorr, Omo and PepsiCo so resilience, security and scalability were vital.

Neil Flanagan, Chief Technology Officer for Brandtone, recalls, “Sungard AS came top of the list for a number of reasons – reputation and track record among them. Their responses to our questions convinced us they were more than capable of meeting our complex web hosting requirements. For example, our sophisticated Interactive Voice Response (IVR) platform requires global connectivity. This year, it will be pushing out over one billion calls in India alone so we needed an enterprise-grade platform we could rely on.”

He adds, “Another reason was that we recognised from the very beginning we would need geographically dispersed failover sites and Sungard AS was able to offer us that combination of a local and global presence.”

All-time availability is critical to the viability of Brandtone’s business. Neil Flanagan explains, “The nature of our mobile marketing campaigns means timing is everything so it is essential we have 24/7/365 availability. Campaigns are many months in the planning and when we do a big media launch it will hit our servers like a tsunami. Our IT infrastructure must be ready and able to cope with those sudden spikes in data at all times.”

“A big media launch will hit our servers like a tsunami so we have to be ready and able to cope with sudden spikes in data”
Neil Flanagan, Chief Technology Officer, Brandtone

Sungard AS’s enterprise-class Managed Private Cloud platform provides a robust environment for its systems and hugely valuable data. Resilience is assured through global load balancing, multiple internet carriers, managed firewall, two-factor authentication and DDoS mitigation.

Sungard AS’s cloud gives Brandtone dedicated virtualisation and storage that allows enhanced levels of customisation, security and performance. With Personally Identifiable Information (PII) a perennial hot issue, Neil Flanagan finds the high level of control and security the platform affords particularly reassuring. He notes, “We curate a wealth of data on behalf of our customers so data segregation is paramount. Sungard AS’s cloud configurations enable us to maintain its integrity. Our customers rely on us to provide a secure service and we, in turn, rely on Sungard AS.”

The flexibility of Sungard AS’s cloud environment has been crucial in accommodating Brandtone’s phenomenal growth rate. Each component of the resource pool is individually flexible – the available processors, memory, storage, number of instances and bandwidth. Neil Flanagan knows he can flex Brandtone’s baseline resources by up to 100% of his agreed capacity at any time to meet changing business demands.

While Brandtone is able to monitor usage, modify infrastructure, provision resources, change firewall policy and support new business applications on demand via a convenient online portal, each change is professionally reviewed by Sungard AS’s experts to preserve the integrity of the live production environment.

Brandtone is delighted with the level of availability it enjoys. “We needed very robust systems with full failover capability and that’s exactly what Sungard AS has given us – 100% uptime,” reports Neil Flanagan. He admits, “There’s no doubt we’re a demanding client. We’ve gone into 12 new countries in the past 18 months. This level of aggressive growth requires constant adaptability and responsiveness from Sungard AS. I’m happy to say they’ve risen to the challenge. I consider them a close and trusted partner.”

Read the full case study

MIGRATION TO THE CLOUD CONTINUES UNABATED

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The swift migration to cloud computing and data recovery services shows no signs of slowing, according to a new study conducted by IDG Research Services on behalf of Sungard Availability Services and EMC® Corporation. Half of organisations reported that they expect to boost their cloud services budgets over the next 18 months.

More than half (58%) predict they will gain increased flexibility from using cloud services with other benefits cited including reduced downtime, improved reliability and enhanced productivity. However, challenges remain surrounding cloud migration with security still ranking highest among the top cloud concerns.

Some 38% believe it will prove a challenge to realise a return on investment on cloud recovery services. Nonetheless, nearly half of firms (46%) already invest in such services or plan to within the next one to two years while a further 30% say these services are on their radar. With speed of recovery listed as the top benefit of cloud recovery services, over six in ten report four hours or less as their ideal recovery time goal.

The full results of the survey can be found here.

IS YOUR SUPPLY CHAIN THE WEAKEST LINK?

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According to a new supply chain resilience survey, in the last five years more than three quarters (78.6%) of organisations have experienced at least one incident involving their supply chain. Worryingly, the true figure could be much higher as two-thirds of firms admit they do not have full visibility of supply chain disruption levels due to a lack of reporting.

While the majority (60%) of disruptions occur at Tier 1 of the supply chain, a growing number – 10% in 2013 – report disruptions at Tier 3 and below. Over the five-year period, unplanned IT or telecom outages and extreme weather conditions have continued to be the top causes of business interruption. Among other sources of disruption, insolvency of a pivotal supplier and illness of a key individual are no longer seen as being major concerns but being let down by an outsource and disruption to the transport network have moved up the rankings.

As you might expect, there are marked differences between geographical location and industry sector when it comes to the causes of disruption. For example, manufacturers are most vulnerable to product quality incidents while insolvency of a supplier is the main concern in the engineering and construction industries. Looking at geography, an earthquake or tsunami is one of the top issues in Asia, Australia and New Zealand while adverse weather is a big concern for companies in the US.

Although productivity losses were among the main consequences of supply chain disruption, a growing number of firms in the survey cited reputational damage. Perhaps unsurprisingly, a growing number of respondents are now expecting suppliers to conform to an internationally recognised standard such as ISO 22301 – 39% asked for this evidence in 2013 alone. A third (35.7%) check their suppliers’ business continuity management (BCM) provision at contract renewal. However, more than 70% do not provide BCM assurance for a majority of their new business tenders.

These survey findings are the latest to confirm the business case for measures to mitigate business interruptions caused by disruption to the supply chain. For many years Sungard Availability Services has helped customers reduce their exposure to supply chain failure by conducting one-off supplier audits in response to customer requests to identify points of vulnerability. However, such ad hoc audits provide protection for only several suppliers. Understandably, it is the customer’s most critical suppliers that are audited as they account for the lion’s share of spend, but it may in fact be the lower value, smaller suppliers that are more likely to fail and result in legal or regulatory issues.

Cost-efficient approach to mitigating supplier risk
Consequently, Sungard AS has developed a new service that effectively turns the traditional approach to ensuring resilience of the supply chain on its head. Rather than selectively auditing individual suppliers, which could allow some to fall through the cracks, it focuses on ensuring the customer’s own processes and procedures around management of its supply chain are robust. This builds a more comprehensive picture of supply chain resilience.

The new service, ‘Supply Chain Framework Review’, is delivered by Sungard AS’s experienced consulting team and gives customers the benefit of Sungard AS’s expertise in three spheres: legal, procurement and business continuity management. The consulting assignment is broken down into three phases:

Phase 1 – Assessment
Sungard AS’s consultants evaluate your current procurement framework from all three angles (legal, procurement and BC), looking at issues such as how you identify supply chain dependencies in your business continuity process and add clauses to contracts. This early stage will often highlight shortcomings that, once addressed, will result in improved data protection, information security and corporate social responsibility performance, as well as more robust supply chain management procedures. However, if your firm’s legal, procurement and BC processes are already sufficiently mature Sungard AS will proceed to the next stage.

Phase 2 – Implementation
Sungard AS will draw up a bespoke system to review your supply chain. This involves recommending a series of questions to be included at the RFP or RFQ stage when seeking new suppliers, together with contract clauses to be incorporated at contract renewal for existing suppliers. Our consultants also look at the changes that need to be made to internal systems to flag contracts due for renewal so the new clauses can be added, preventing contracts from simply being automatically renewed.

Phase 3 – Review
Finally, once the new procurement procedures have been implemented, Sungard AS are able to check, typically on an annual basis, that the controls are working well and propose adjustments if necessary.

Sungard AS anticipates heavy demand for the new service, both from organisations that have regulatory obligations to ensure continuity of supply and also from firms that already commission one-off checks but want to mitigate the risk of business disruption cost-efficiently by implementing tighter controls across their entire supplier base.

If you would like an exploratory discussion about how a Supply Chain Framework Review could benefit your organisation, email avail@sungardas.com

 

Introducing Adam Barrett
Sungard AS Business Continuity Consultant Adam Barrett is spearheading the development and implementation of Supply Chain Framework Review. A BC professional with specialist expertise in supply chain issues, his experience spans several industry sectors including retail, telecoms and financial services. Adam holds numerous qualifications in a variety of highly relevant fields such as management consultancy, business continuity, risk analysis (in which he gained an MSc from King’s College, London) and information security.
Adam, a former finalist in the BCI Global Awards 2012 ‘Newcomer of the Year’ category, started out on his BC career as a Risk Communications Advisor with the Health & Safety Executive, and gained an insight into supplier issues while working as a sales forecast analyst with leading supermarket chain Sainsbury’s.

IS YOUR BUSINESS READY FOR CHANGE?

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A Sungard Availability Services-sponsored report by V3 into attitudes towards change confirms the digital workplace is no longer about running fixed processes that remain static; it’s about flexibility, agility and adapting to change. It warns firms that fail to embrace this shift will soon be overtaken by their more agile competitors.

The survey of IT professionals reveals that while more than two-thirds rate being agile and flexible as critical (32%) or important (37%), their ability to change varies greatly. And while many respondents claim to embrace change, the majority (55%) would only consider updating their processes or systems if others had already done so, meaning they are always behind their competitors.

As for timescales, around a third of firms said new projects would take weeks to fulfil while a quarter said their ability to change would take only a matter of days. Although 13% claimed changes could be carried out in a matter of hours, at the other end of the scale, 17% said any changes would require months to roll out, while for a worrying one in 10, this increases to years!

The chief executive is cited as the main driver for change in an organisation (44%) with the IT department seen as another key driver of change (24%). Just 10% named the business development director, and 6% the finance director.

Firms see benefits of agility
Customer service improvements were rated as the top benefit of becoming more agile and flexible, followed by financial benefits: 54% citing cost savings and 51% potential for increased revenues. Interestingly, 53% of respondents see staff productivity and happiness as a benefit. Next came speed, with 51% mentioning getting ahead of competitors, while 49% selected faster speed to market as advantages of embracing change.

However, before firms can start taking advantage of the many benefits of agile IT, they need to overcome major obstacles to change. Cost topped the list of obstacles with two-thirds of respondents overall rating this as the main barrier to change. Outdated technology infrastructure and security concerns were cited by a third while a quarter of business users saw the need for a solid business case for change as a barrier, compared with 19% of IT respondents.

In conclusion, the results indicate most organisations are aware of the value of being able to change frequently and easily, with benefits from cost savings to better customer service on offer. However, this alone is not enough. They need to back up this awareness with a culture of flexibility and agility, implementing processes and systems that support frequent, smooth changes and monitor their impact.

Download the report here

IT GOVERNANCE SURVEY CLAIMS NEGOTIATION IS KEY

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Sungard Availability Services has partnered with The Register to publish a research paper titled ‘Flexible IT Governance in a Changing World’ that asks how IT governance should respond to the increasing rate of change in the devices and services that users and managers want to use.

On one hand, the evidence is that untracked or uncontrolled use is fatal to governance processes. With an increased regulatory burden (not least, forthcoming EU data protection legislation), this has potentially disastrous consequences. Yet, there is evidence to suggest that the seemingly conflicting needs of the IT department for control and business users for freedom are, in fact, not irreconcilable. The paper argues that when IT prioritises communication, it can actually uncover large areas of consensus.

It also makes the point that proactive IT departments should accommodate user wishes as far as possible – if for no other reason than ignoring them encourages shadow IT.

It warns that no improvement can happen without clarity over who runs the governance process. For functions such as security, this may not be the IT department (although it would still function as a trusted advisor). Devolving responsibility to the business may create a better environment for compliance with governance processes.

The report acknowledges that with so many competing interests and so many dimensions to good governance, it is tempting for an IT department to shy away from attempting to improve the governance process. However, it asserts that there are mechanisms by which the IT department can initiate governance improvements and makes pragmatic recommendations as to how this can be achieved. The research concludes that these efforts will prove worthwhile as rather than flexibility undermining governance, good governance creates flexibility.

Download the full report or view our webcast recording

CUSTOMER SATISFACTION LEVELS REMAIN HIGH

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We are delighted to share the results of this year’s Customer Satisfaction Survey, which for the first time included Sungard Availability Services Ireland customers.

Thank you to all the 201 randomly selected customers who took time out of their busy schedules to give us their feedback on how we’re performing. The customer split was as follows:

    • 17 are new customers
    • 167 are Recovery Services customers
    • 147 use Managed Datacentre Services
    • 29 use our Consulting Services
    • 14 are Software subscribers

Those of you who are good at maths will quickly notice this equates to more than 201 responses but, of course, several survey respondents subscribe to multiple services.
While we are not complacent, we are pleased to report that overall satisfaction levels remain extremely high at 93%, which is reflected in the percentage of customers who would recommend our services (94%).

Among other notable feedback, 94.5% (the same percentage as in the 2013 survey) said they would continue to subscribe. Encouragingly, our ‘Net Promoter Score’ – a calculation showing promoters less detractors, was 82%, a very high industry score.

As you know, we have continually strived to improve our handling of problems and invoicing. This year these areas have been maintained following the signs of progress we saw last year. Our Customer Services team continues to work on improving our support and responsiveness, which received a 92% satisfaction rating, a slight fall on last year but still strong for our industry.
We were happy to note that customers scored us highly in questions relating to trust, which has increased to 92% this year. Among notable improvements was a score of 87% for delivering what we promise – an increase of 4%. An equal number of customers – 98% – believe they are treated with respect and we are encouraged that the percentage who said they can count on Sungard AS to reach a fair and satisfactory conclusion rose slightly to 91%.

We added several new questions to the survey this year so we can track progress and build a more comprehensive picture of our performance in response to findings from last year’s survey. With On Boarding and Cloud Services priority areas for 2015, we built in additional question areas relating to service management to measure the success of our efforts to implement an ITIL framework during 2014. New questions covered on-boarding into service (benchmark score 73%), site facilities (97.8%), cloud services (87.5%) and project management (80%).

Statistics are important but, as always, respondents’ feedback told the story behind the figures. Comments included “Happy with Sungard AS – no one else would be able to provide us with the level of service we need. We’re gradually moving away from other providers to Sungard AS” and “We have all types of business with them and have no issues at all, which shows consistency across the board. Very good.”

While the survey may be over for another year we welcome your feedback year-round. If you would like to share your opinions on any aspect of our service, please email patrick.morley@sungardas.com

We look forward to hearing your views!

REPORT REVEALS TRUE EXTENT OF DIGITAL DISRUPTION

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A new report, ‘CIO Perspectives on Digital Disruption’, sponsored by Sungard Availability Services and NetApp, confirms cloud computing has sent waves of disruption through enterprise IT provision. Furthermore, the IDG research reveals the cloud will have a similarly profound impact over the next five years.

Here’s a summary of the report’s main findings:

Service types
SaaS dominates with IaaS, DaaS and CaaS usage broadly equal.

We are seeing steady adoption of the on-demand, pay-as-you-go cloud computing model as IT departments migrate increasing volumes of virtualised workloads and applications into either on- or off-premise data centres built on more efficient unified server, storage and network architectures designed to maximise provisioning speed and capacity utilisation.

Software as a Service (SaaS) remains the most common approach with the emergence of online software suites such as Microsoft Office365 and GoogleApps driving usage.

Advantages understood
But cloud is only one important element in broader digital transformation

The survey reflects splits in cloud platform usage with 67% using SaaS products, 47% Infrastructure as a Service (IaaS) and 42% Platform as a Service (PaaS).

Outsourced enterprise communications solutions – which typically include Voice over IP (VoIP), telephony, instant messaging collaboration and videoconferencing applications – have also gained traction as organisations replace ageing analogue and digital telephone systems with IP-based alternatives.

Enterprise grade Communications as a Service (CaaS) and Unified CaaS (UCaaS) that use assets owned, managed and colocated by third party service providers are now widely available from companies including Avaya, Ericsson, Microsoft and more recently Cisco, alongside telecommunications companies.

The potential benefits cloud computing can bring to the average enterprise are well understood with 94% saying it had helped their organisation move closer to meeting their business needs.

Benefits centre on maximisation of assets such as servers, storage and network resources, cost efficiencies that align charges more tightly to usage; greater agility in delivering instant processing, storage and software resources to drive new project initiatives; scalability in line with seasonal peaks or commercial expansion; and a low barrier to entry for startups that lack the capital or in-house skills to buy and implement their own IT infrastructure.

Alternative approaches
Where cloud computing is not viable, organisations turn to managed service contracts, hosting providers and staff training programmes

Long before the formalisation of IaaS, SaaS and PaaS services in the early to mid-noughties, enterprise outsourcing of IT provision to a third party was common and is still popular – 48% of respondents reported that extending existing outsourcing arrangements would be the natural alternative to cloud migration.

Disruptive influences
Greater mobility and the flexibility to start new projects quickly through fast, simple provisioning seen as most important benefits

Parallel advances in mobile technology over the last decade have resulted in large numbers of powerful smartphones and tablet computers finding their way into the hands of consumers and business users alike, most of which lend themselves very well to accessing cloud-hosted applications and services.

Other benefits include support for remote working and mobile users (cited by 72%), with ease of globalising the workforce quoted by 59%. The flexibility afforded by being able to start projects more quickly without instigating onerous IT procurement processes was considered extremely or very important by 69%, particularly when securing high compute capacity on demand (69%) and to support software testing and development projects (67%). Other drivers include being able to scale user numbers up or down (66%) and the quick, simple provisioning of hardware and software through an easy-to-use web interface (68%).

Key concerns
Executives harbour continuing doubts around cloud security, data protection, governance costs and performance

The many high profile incidents of data loss and security breaches that have led fines by regulators, reputational damage and lost business over the last decade means no organisation can afford to take risks concerning data protection, privacy and governance.

What is not immediately clear however is where that data is more safe – in hosting facilities owned and managed by a third party or on-premise servers operated by the internal IT department, which may or may not have equivalent levels of security certification and knowledge of regulatory requirements and processes. Whilst the perception amongst executives is that sensitive data is better protected the closer it is and the more tightly they can control it, this is not necessarily true.

Nonetheless, cloud security doubts remain with 58% citing security and 41% data protection, privacy and governance as areas of concern which continues to fuel the need for Hybrid IT.

Apprehension around application and service performance (availability – cited by 30%) and scepticism about the long-term financial viability of the cloud service provider (17%) remain common themes.

Snowden affair damaged trust
Up to 31% of cloud contracts delayed, terminated or cancelled

The survey results indicate the extent to which the Snowden affair has coloured corporate attitudes to cloud services. Only 26% said the affair had done nothing to dent their confidence while 74% admitted it had affected them personally or company decision-makers although 58% said the episode had led to nothing more serious than extended debate. Almost half (46%) said they had seen an increased emphasis on cloud security specifically, but close to a third (31%) said their organisation had either delayed planned cloud service migration initiatives or implementations as a direct result of the revelations.

Increased security concerns led to at least one cloud service contract being terminated in 23% of those organisations and 18% saw cancellations of planned services.

There is also evidence to suggest cloud service purchase orders have come under greater scrutiny at executive level with 22% admitting to greater top down interference in buying or leasing decisions.

Future disruptions
Big data analytics, BYOD, wearable technology and the Internet of Things predicted to be future major disruptive influences

Although arguably the very definition of a disruptive technology is one that appears out of nowhere and quickly goes mainstream, big data, BYOD, wearable computers, machine-to-machine communications (M2M) and the Internet of Things (IoT) are tipped to have a sweeping impact in what seems to be set to be the year of digital disruption.

Download the report

LEARNING THE LESSONS OF EVOLUTION

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Welcome to the autumn edition of AVAIL – I hope you had a great summer!

This issue, our lead story highlights a new Sungard Availability Services-commissioned report that illustrates how business agility is critical for business survival today. The article offers you the opportunity to download the full report, which I highly recommend – it makes fascinating reading.

Taking the message of our lead story on board, AVAIL is itself evolving. We are adapting to the way our customers tells us they like to receive their news, by producing AVAIL in a responsive online format that can be read on any device; iPhone, BlackBerry, laptop, tablet etc, making it more accessible on the move – especially for those dull train journeys or departure lounges. This will also allow you to see the contents of each issue at a glance and easily refer back to previous editions. We have taken this step in response to feedback from customers who want to be able to read AVAIL anytime anywhere, and we are always open to feedback.

In other news, we also bring you news of exciting developments with Sungard AS AssuranceCM, our next-generation continuity management software as a service solution, and some thought-provoking views on the future of IT within the Banking, Finance and Insurance (BFI) sectors.

Elsewhere, we explore what the implications of the raised terror alert rating are for British businesses – how would your organisation fare? Then there are the somewhat worrying findings of a survey of companies worldwide on their preparedness for disruption.

As always, I hope you enjoy this issue and my team welcomes feedback on any aspect of the magazine, particularly your views on its new format. Just send your comments to the editor at infoavail@sungardas.com
Gary Watson

General Manager Ireland

 

WATERSHED MOMENT FOR CIOs

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A thought-provoking report commissioned by Sungard Availability Services, ‘Digital dynamics in the C-Suite: Accelerating digitisation with the right conversations’, indicates the time is right for collaborative working models between IT and the business, but also warns if CIOs want to keep their seat at the boardroom table they must take the initiative and claim a true leadership role rather than be side-lined into a technology silo.

Joe PeppardReport author Professor Joe Peppard of the European School of Management & Technology explains that in the past a CIO’s key focus would be on aligning IT with business needs. Typically, this meant taking the business strategy – which they had little influence on – and then determining the investment portfolio for IT. He argues that when the ICT strategy is subservient to the business strategy in this way it effectively turns the CIO’s role into being little more than an order taker. With ICT needing to be integrated into the very fabric of the organisation IT should be part of the strategic management and thought processes of the organisation whereas, in far too many cases, it is an afterthought.

Digitisation – opportunity or threat?
Today, the concept of ‘digital strategy’ is emerging to supplant what was previously ‘the IT strategy’. Most businesses today are – or, at least, are becoming – digital businesses. No industry it seems is immune to the realities where business processes, value proposition, customer experiences, products, services and management practices have been or are being transformed by the internet and other digital technologies. Yet most CEOs and their boards are unclear on how best to respond and where investment will deliver the best returns and clearest customer benefits.

Professor Peppard believes this presents “a unique opportunity for CIOs to elevate their influence in the organisation and drive the digital agenda.” However, they cannot do it alone, but require the active involvement of both the CEO and C-Suite colleagues. Success with ICT is a shared responsibility. The problem is, of course, that many others in the C-Suite don’t quite see it this way and if they are determined to see digitisation as solely a technology issue, then the real benefits of digital technologies are unlikely be realised.

In his report Professor Peppard cites the emergence of digital cameras as an example of both the opportunities and threats presented by the age of digitisation. With the ability to take photos built into smartphones, we can record the time a photo was taken, its precise location and also share it instantly. This has spawned new businesses such as Instagram, Picasa, and Snapchat and new entrants such as Sony and Samsung – but also the demise of one-time industry powerhouse Kodak. A cautionary tale illustrating the consequences of failing to adapt to the modern world and a convincing demonstration of the need for business agility.

Ironically, this renewed interest in ICT and digitisation comes at a time when the CIO role is facing a number of challenges. Firstly, some CIOs have found themselves being dropped from their seat at the top table, and instead reporting into the CFO. Secondly, with the growth of cloud and ‘shadow’ IT, more and more IT spend is occurring outside the remit of the IT function.

The report wryly notes one analyst predicts by 2017 the Chief Marketing Officer will spend more on IT than the CIO! And, there is even evidence of the newly-created role of Chief Digital Officer displacing the influence of the CIO.

A juggling act
CIOs face conflicting demands. On the one hand, they must provide cost-efficient, predictable IT services while, on the other, they are expected to ensure the company’s IT estate will be responsive and agile. Trying to balance “keeping the lights on” with innovation is a constant challenge for CIOs.

Perhaps the most difficult challenge CIOs face is the low level of digital literacy in the C-Suite. Even executives who class themselves as ‘tech savvy’ often base that assessment on their experiences with consumer IT. Many use smartphones, tablets and office productivity tools, download apps and even set up their own home routers for broadband, but this does not necessarily qualify them to understand how to manage IT at an enterprise level.

Exploring why other C-Suite executives tend to side-line IT, the report suggests they often feel very exposed when having any conversations to do with IT as they consider themselves to be technically illiterate. Perhaps understandably, the easiest response is simply to delegate – or more often, abdicate – responsibility for anything IT-related to the CIO including governance.

CXOs must recognise that there is a seismic shift in the role of technology in organisations as it becomes more and more embedded in everything we do. Decisions about IT today really have little to do with technology. Rather, they are about competitive advantage, business growth, cost reductions, flexibility and responsiveness, margin increase, and productivity improvement.

Collaborative working relationships between the CIO and business colleagues are essential to harness digital opportunities and optimise the value from ICT investments. But it would not be an exaggeration to say that the relationship between IT and the rest of the business has been a troubled one and many CXOs do not see the CIO as an equal. The 2014 State of the CIO survey confirmed that half the CIOs surveyed view IT as a service provider. There may also be entrenched views to break down. Years of resentment and negative perceptions, often based on project failures attributed, rightly or wrongly, to IT, may have built up.

In an effort to address these thorny issues the report ends with some pragmatic guidance for CIOs to help them achieve the transformation from a mere service provider to a respected C-Suite colleague who has a valuable role to play in shaping business strategy.

Visit All-time.co.uk to review Joe Peppard’s top 10 tips for the C-Suite in our ’Digital Dynamics in the C-Suite’ e-Book.

If you would like an exploratory discussion with a member of our Consultancy team about increasing your business agility, please call +353 (0)1 467 3650 or email infoavail@sungardas.com

SUNGARD AS ASSURANCE NAMED A LEADER IN GARTNER’S MAGIC QUADRANT

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Gartner MQ for BCM Planning SoftwareSungard AS AssuranceCM (Continuity Manager), our next-generation Software as a Service solution for continuity management, has been positioned in the Leaders quadrant by Gartner1 in its latest Magic Quadrant report for business continuity management planning software, positioning it highest on the execution axis.

 

The service has been rapidly evolving since its launch last year to incorporate useful new elements requested by customers. Enhanced versions are being released every 90 days on a sprint release pattern with Version 6 due out by the end of the year. New features include:

  • Situational Awareness – Using Google Maps as a base, customers can overlay additional information feeds such as the weather and traffic to identify events that may affect their sites and employees.
  • Plan Virtualisation – This allows customers to view, and adjust, their plans on screen quickly, in real time, rather than laboriously export and update a static pdf document.
  • Customisation – Sungard AS AssuranceCM has achieved the holy grail of a software tool that is intuitive and simple to use but also easily customisable.
  • Powerful notification tool – AssuranceCM can incorporate AssuranceNM (Notification Manager), market leading, easy-to-use notification software.
  • Integrates data from external sources – We’ve embedded Sungard AS Assurance Connect into Sungard AS AssuranceCM. This is an industry-leading Enterprise Integration Platform as a Service (iPaaS) that gives you enhanced integration capabilities and enables you to draw in data from external sources such as HR records or content management databases without needing to perform any coding work.

While compliance is, of course, vitally important, Sungard AS AssuranceCM goes beyond box-ticking to be of real practical help in a crisis. It has been specifically designed to support organisations that have decentralised responsibility for business continuity so the software needs to be intuitive and extremely easy-to-use. We expect our software tools to be simple and intuitive to use, like the social media we use every day and user feedback to date shows this has been accomplished.

If you would like to discuss how Sungard AS AssuranceCM could benefit your organisation, contact us on +353 (0)1 467 3650 or email infoavail@sungardas.com.

1 Gartner Magic Quadrant for Business Continuity Management Planning Software – Published 27 August 2014

NORTH STOCKHOLM DATA CENTRE EXPANDS

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In response to customer demand, Sungard Availability Services Sweden has expanded its northern Stockholm data centre in Sollentuna, which is linked to its data centre in Satra, southern Stockholm.

In line with our commitment to low carbon facilities, all Sungard AS data centres in Sweden are powered entirely by wind. In fact, our Satra site was named Green Data Centre of the Year when it opened in 2009 and the Sollentuna data centre is even more environmentally-friendly. Sweden’s two data centres are complimented by a recovery centre in Gärdet, Stockholm that enables the Swedish team to provide Managed Services and a full range of recovery solutions including our Managed Recovery Programme.

Håkan Björkland, Sales & General Manager for Sungard AS Sweden, remarks, “With our resilient, interconnected twin sites for IT production services and a recovery centre in Stockholm, we are able to provide customers with complete solutions for IT operations and disaster recovery built on first-class IT infrastructure.”

SURVEY REVEALS SHOCKING LACK OF PREPAREDNESS

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A new report1 by the Disaster Recovery Preparedness Council reveals an enormous shortfall in DR preparedness of companies worldwide. The survey of 243 businesses of various types and sizes worldwide found more than half (54%) do not have a proper DR plan while 40% of those that do said it had not been maintained or tested regularly so did not prove very useful when called on to respond to their worst business interruption.

In other worrying findings more than a third (36%) of organisations admitting to losing one or more critical applications or vital data for hours at a time over the past year, while for nearly one in five companies this stretched to several days. Even more alarming, one in four respondents had lost “most or all” of a data centre for hours or even days!

Reported losses from outages ranged from a few thousand to millions of dollars with almost a fifth of companies indicating losses ranging from $50,000 to over $5 million. Additionally, a quarter said staff time diverted to recover the business had a disruptive effect. Confirming Sungard Availability Services’ own figures, three-quarters of respondents said they risked failing to recover at all.

The blame for this surprising (and worrying) state of affairs can be summarised as a lack of business continuity and recovery planning, testing and resources to maintain and support what must be a “living plan”. Almost one in four (23%) companies do not test their DR plans at all – meaning they have no idea whether they can fully recover their IT systems in the event of a disaster – and for those that do the results are disturbing, with more than 65% failing to pass their own tests.

The majority of organisations participating in the survey had invested in a secondary site to help manage disaster recovery with around half using a site that mirrors their primary site and another 20% relying on a secondary site for DR that does not mirror the primary site.

While analysts are predicting Disaster Recovery as a Service will experience explosive growth in the next few years, currently less than one in ten depend on this type of service and another 11%, use a third party service provider. However, there is some good news in that the majority of respondents plan to revise their DR strategy, suggesting that they recognise its deficiencies.

As in many cases respondents lack the internal resources and skills to manage DR implementation and testing themselves, we could see increasing demand for Sungard AS’s Recovery as a Service in which Sungard AS takes responsibility for recovering the business’s critical functions within a contractually guaranteed timescale in the event of a real-life outage. This gives customers the benefit of our experience – gained from supporting thousands of disaster declarations in complex environments over 30 years – as a cost-effective service.

The comprehensive report, based on an annual benchmark survey, shares best practice from better prepared organisations and includes recommendations on what companies can do to increase their own DR preparedness in an always-on world where high availability is of paramount importance.

To find out more about Sungard AS’s Recovery as a Service, speak to your account manager or contact us on 0800 143 413 or infoavail@sungardas.com
Download the full report

1Disaster Recovery Preparedness Benchmark Survey – Annual Report 2014

SUNGARD AS EVENTS

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Coming soon!

SD_DCT_IRELAND_STD_01102014Cloud Unpacked – Ireland 6 November 2014
Hilton DoubleTree Hotel, Burlington Road, Upper Lesson Street, Dublin 4

Book your place at this event

We invite you to attend ‘Cloud Unpacked’, a not-to-be-missed event that promises to simplify your journey to data centre transformation and help you move towards an agile, responsive, always-on infrastructure at a pace that’s right for you. This executive briefing is presented in conjunction with partners Island Networks, Cisco and NetApp together with Sungard AS’ customer Brandtone.

Following a welcome by Gary Watson, General Manager Ireland & European Director for Consulting at Sungard AS, you will have the opportunity to hear illuminating talks from knowledgeable speakers including:

  • Ed Waters, Sales Director, Island Networks on ‘Increasing Operational Agility’
  • Julian Wheeler, Senior Systems Engineer Manager, NetApp on the ‘NetApp Unbound Cloud’
  • Brian Jordan, Data Centre & Cloud Business Manager, Cisco on ‘Enabling the World of Many Clouds’
  • Stephen Coombs, Head of Cloud and MS Consulting, Sungard AS on ‘Datacentre Transformation and the Methodology for Success’
  • Neil Flanagan, Chief Technology Officer of global mobile specialist Brandtone who will generously share the firm’s experience with transforming their data centre

The presentations will be followed by a Q&A session and what is sure to be a lively panel discussion.

For more information about this event please call us on +353 (0)1 467 3650 or email infoavail@sungardas.com quoting ‘Cloud Unpacked’.

Seats are strictly limited so secure your place at this informative event, click here to reserve your place today!

 

In case you missed them, here’s a recap of successful Sungard Availability Services events that have taken place over recent months:

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Thought Leadership Forum – Borehamwood Workplace Recovery Centre – 25 June

This event attracted strong interest from customers keen to learn about the risks to businesses in the south posed by tidal surges and the City of London Corporation’s approach to mitigating flood risks. Over time this subject will take on even greater importance as more areas of London – not only those areas close to the Thames – will become increasingly susceptible to flash flooding. This is primarily due to two factors: surface runoff in built-up urban areas and rising temperatures globally creating more moisture.

Delegates also discovered how commercial office development in up-and-coming areas of London could affect both their office location and any in-house recovery services based in the capital. A convincing presentation by Savills painted a picture that will mean rich pickings for landlords at the expense of their tenants. They explained that growing demand is causing core London office rents to rise, pushing occupier demand to the fringe submarkets – hitherto less fashionable areas such as Stratford, SE1, ‘Midtown’ (WC1), Kings Cross and Hammersmith. The result is that businesses are spreading out from the traditional prime areas of the City and West End to disperse across a wider area of London.

The packed agenda also included an informed briefing on the impact of cyber threats and localised disasters on businesses and measures to alleviate them.

The impressive speaker line-up included Paul Beckett, Policy & Performance Director for City of London Corporation, Caroline Douglass, Deputy Area Director for Hertfordshire & North London at the Environment Agency, Alan Atkin, Forecasting & Response Technical Adviser for Thames Tidal Defence, Matthew Purser, Director at Savills and Phillip Wood OBE, Head of Security & Resilience at Buckinghamshire New University.

 

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Customer event – Data Centre Transformation – 16 September

Several Sungard AS customers joined us for a breakfast briefing at London landmark the Heron Tower. There they enjoyed a stunning bird’s eye view of London while listening to world-class speakers reveal how they can increase resilience, security and compliance, drastically reduce costs and support rapid change in an always-on world. This event promised to give delegates a full 360 degree view of their existing infrastructure and help them move to an agile, responsive, available infrastructure – and it did not disappoint.

Attendees heard from renowned industry leaders representing Sungard AS partners CISCO and Alert Logic, as well as Bryan James, Data Centre Transformation Principal Consultant and Andrew Barber, new CSO EMEA & APAC for Sungard AS. Topics on the agenda included identifying security gaps in your current infrastructure, enabling the world of many clouds and the importance of PCI DSS compliance.

OUR CLOUD STRATEGY – IT’S ALL ABOUT YOU

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You might be the finest shoemaker in the city – heck, even the world! Your footwear is handcrafted from the finest, softest leather, expertly stitched by skilled craftsmen and available in the season’s most fashionable colour. But all that won’t matter a jot to your customers if they’re not a perfect fit. You wouldn’t buy a pair of shoes that only came in one size, particularly if that size didn’t happen to coincide with the size of your feet, or indeed wasn’t the right type of footwear for your intended purpose.

So why would you buy an off-the-shelf, one-size-fits all cloud service?

That’s the rationale driving the development of Sungard Availability Services’ portfolio of cloud services. We first look at each individual customer’s unique circumstances and business needs – their IT environment, the applications they need to support and the differing performance demands and availability levels each will require. Only then do we design a solution to address those unique needs that can be delivered in a cloud service and, ultimately, a hybrid IT service.

Organisations use a multitude of different applications. But regardless of the applications they use, one thing holds true: the more applications a business uses, the more complex the hybrid IT environment. Adding to this complexity are the competing demands of the organisation’s various divisions and departments. The HR department, for instance, will have very different needs from Finance or Marketing. So organisations face the challenge of supporting all their business units, each of which will have wildly differing performance, availability and commercial requirements for each application they own.

For example, while the low cost and speed of deployment make a commodity public cloud the ideal environment for test and development purposes, it may be highly unsuitable for a mission critical production environment on which the entire business depends and relies on high performance, security and high availability. In this instance, a hosted private cloud would offer the higher levels of security, compliance and availability required.

Our vision is to bring all the many elements of cloud infrastructure as a service together, enabling them to view resources in one cloud workplace. The customer will then be able to deploy their applications in a cloud workplace. The availability levels the business demands can then be tailored for each application within an application lifecycle.

This utopian ideal is not as far-fetched – or far away – as you might imagine. Our strategy to bring this vision to reality is to break it down into its component parts and several project teams have been working in parallel on delivering key elements including:

  • The use of open source technology
  • Infusing security in terms of both technology and regulatory compliance
  • Cloud workplaces that provide role based access and granular level billing and chargeback
  • Adoption of Sungard Availability Services portfolio of services on 3rd party public clouds like Amazon Web Services (AWS)

Watch this space for more developments!

ICT INFRASTRUCTURE TRANSFORMATION HELPS CITY LINK DELIVER RESULTS

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When premium express parcel company City Link was sold by Rentokil Initial, it faced an immovable deadline to disengage its IT and communications infrastructure from its parent within just 12 months, after which it would incur punitive sanctions. It embarked on the search to find a technology partner able to implement a robust, resilient solution within the tight timescale imposed.

Following a tender process, the express delivery company chose Sungard Availability Services as its consulting and technology partner in a 3½ year, £2.5m deal to manage its cloud and managed services, including its data centre.

Technology is not only vital to the continuity of City Link’s daily business operations but also a key differentiator, supporting among other things the crucial Track & Trace capability highly valued by its customers. With over 8,000 customers (including Marks & Spencer and Amazon) relying on the company to deliver more than 65 million items annually, All-timeTM availability of its critical systems is essential.

The Sungard AS project team faced numerous obstacles that complicated an already complex disengagement process including:

  • The sheer volume of servers (over 300) to be migrated
  • The high number of servers requiring remediation work before they could be moved
  • Number of interdependencies and different parties involved in the process
  • Low understanding of the business dependencies
  • Lack of service mapping

This would be a daunting task for many organisations and City Link simply did not have the skills, resources or experience required in-house. So City Link contracted 140 consulting days from Sungard AS to cover the extensive remediation work necessary to bring operating systems up-to-date – many servers were four or five versions behind where they needed to be.

The team first undertook an automated discovery and analysis exercise to identify all networks, hardware, operating systems, middleware and applications on City Link’s network – this resulted in several surprises!

Next, the Sungard AS team began planning the migration. One very important step was to map all dependencies to determine the order in which systems and applications should be transferred to avoid causing disruption to the business. Networking was another important aspect of the transition process.

A pilot involving the migration of test servers from the existing physical infrastructure onto the cloud platform proved successful and the Sungard AS project team embarked on the full programme, conducting migration events over five successive weekends to minimise any business disruption.

Timings were always uppermost in the team’s mind. “The migration of our demilitarized zone and firewall was critical and Sungard AS understood failure would have significant consequences for City Link and its customer base,” notes City Link Programme Manager, Robert Walsh.
Ultimately, the Sungard AS project team met the deadline with a month to spare. What’s more, City Link found an added benefit of the transition is that it has been able to streamline its server count from 300 to 100, a considerable efficiency-saving.

Robert Walsh remarks, “We very much consider Sungard AS our partner and worked as one team with open lines of communication between us. The best result we could have was that no one would notice anything had changed and this was achieved.”

Read the full case study

BANKING, FINANCE & INSURANCE INDUSTRY LEADERS SHARE INSIGHTS

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The first report into views on the future of IT within the Banking, Finance and Insurance (BFI) sectors confirms security, compliance and regulation remain the top challenges. The ‘BFI Key Influencers Report’, based on Sungard Availability Services-commissioned research among industry leaders, sets out to explore the rapidly changing technological environment within these sectors and spark further conversation.

It will not come as a surprise that regulation dominated our conversations – specifically how regulation could and would affect infrastructure investments in the future. This uncertainty is exacerbated by the prospect of fresh regulation on the horizon. The main concern is the need to keep up with changing regulation while still offering the same level of service to customers, particularly in a time when budgets are getting tighter. The industry finds itself under a very real pressure to do more for less, meeting increased levels of compliance while reducing spend.

This is no idle complaint: compliance is incredibly resource heavy, with several CIOs estimating that over 50% of their time is spent dealing with security matters.

The report also explored views towards the cloud. With 60% of server workloads now virtualised, cloud computing was always likely to be at the forefront of our conversations with key BFI influencers. It currently accounts for a third of IT expenditure growth since the first open source cloud appeared in 2008. Throughout this rapid adoption, the way organisations are using the cloud is also changing. 28% are now utilising cloud technology for their business processes, with 15% adopting some form of software as a service.

Email continuity appears to be top of the wish list for those looking to incorporate cloud technology within the BFI industry as many now consider mass email administration to be unnecessarily time consuming. Of course, in the event of a failure or service disruption, the most time-critical aspect for most large organisations would be access to email. In light of this, it seems the BFI sector is ready to explore it options with regard to cloud email systems to ensure real-time, remote access to email in the event of a disaster.

There are not many IT professionals who haven’t considered the advantages of IaaS, but many fear they are not in a position to capitalise on the possible savings of outsourcing as they cannot simply “strip out” their current IT staff in order to pay for an ongoing off-site cost. This opinion is much challenged however, with some key influencers arguing to the contrary that outsourcing IT actually frees up in-house teams to do the jobs they were employed to do, rather than becoming bogged down in a more support or maintenance role.

Overall, while there is almost unanimous agreement that the cloud offers huge advantages for certain applications, this is tempered with caution about the challenges those working in BFI face in sharing data with third parties or hosting off-site. Many felt this would almost certainly hit problems in terms of regulation and compliance. There is also still a concern that complying with data regulations would cause problems for hosting providers outside the industry.

The future

Looking to the future for the BFI industries, we asked our pool of leading technology professionals where they felt the industry would and should head next. The vast majority see a greater use of cloud technologies as inevitable. Even if the preferred set up is still in-house, the cost and scalability benefits of IaaS are now too lucrative to ignore completely. Even the staunchest sceptics are now seeing the benefits of IaaS, if only for applications such as email and business continuity.

Others feel email is just the tip of the iceberg for cloud technology. As organisations grow they are seeing themselves increasingly pushed by their customers to stay available and operate in a more global way. Wherever a customer is in the world, organisations are seeing the need to offer a consistent approach. Rather than having a different system for Europe, Asia or South America, customers now demand a global user interface and this is not possible without the cloud.

The main challenge then is to overcome some of these legacy systems and embrace a move into more global cloud-based systems that offer far more flexibility. Sensitive IP however, is still likely to be handled in-house even though most cloud provider security standards meet, or even exceed, industry security standards.

While attitudes towards the cloud are most definitely shifting, wholesale adoption is unlikely to happen overnight, suggests one CIO. “There is a fear of change throughout the BFI industry. In general, there is a reluctance to move away from anything that works regardless of whether it is still the most efficient option. As a rule the industry has a culture of bolting things on to existing set-ups rather than changing things from the core out, even when this may be the most efficient thing to do.”

Keith Tilley, Executive Vice President, EMEA and APAC for Sungard Availability Services, comments, “This inaugural BFI Key Influencers Report provides insight into the mindset of the BFI industry as it goes through an uncertain transition – embracing new technologies and tackling increasingly laborious regulation. Going forward, this yearly report aims to be the voice of the industry, shining a light on its successes and shaping the way it overcomes its challenges.”

You can download the full report from our website.

To continue the discussion around this year’s report, or register your interest in taking part in next year’s, please call 0800 143 413 and speak to our BFI Key Influencer Team who would be delighted to discuss our findings at a deeper level.

SECURITY TOP OF THE AGENDA

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Welcome to the summer issue of AVAIL in which our lead story highlights the growing threat of cyber attacks in various forms and the worrying trend for hackers to use Europe as a test bed for larger, global attacks. We look at what organisations can do to protect themselves against these threats and allow company bosses to sleep at night. In a related story we focus on Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) mitigation, a vital service to help you fight back against this increasingly prevalent type of attack.

Elsewhere, we look at other country-specific risks companies need to consider when offshoring operations to India and examine London’s unique risks as a corporate location. Appropriately, given this issue’s security theme, we turn the spotlight on our new Chief Security Officer Andrew Barber in a Quick Fire Questions feature.

With security and resilience critical considerations in your choice of cloud provider, we were delighted our enterprise cloud services (ECS) have been awarded both PCI DSS and IL3 accreditation.

Speaking of awards, we extend our warmest congratulations to the many, many customers who enjoyed well-deserved success in the 2014 CIR Business Continuity Awards. We were delighted to be able to celebrate alongside you by winning the Best Contribution to Continuity & Resilience category!

In product news we share developments on the evolution of our Managed Recovery Programme into a full-blown Recovery as a Service.

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 infoavail@sungardas.com

Gary Watson
General Manager Ireland

STAY A STEP AHEAD OF CYBER ATTACKS

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Cybercrime is a rising threat worldwide but a new study(1) has identified a growing trend that suggests companies across Europe are particularly vulnerable, with hackers using the region as a test bed for malicious software (‘malware’) before deployment across the globe. The region suffered some 973,000 attacks during a six month monitoring period in 2013. This compared with 480,000 attacks for the same period across Asia and 224,000 in the US. Within Europe, the UK is targeted for a disproportionate number of attacks relative to its size.

While the UK suffers a greater volume of attacks, the methods used by cyber criminals are fairly consistent across the globe. One of the biggest threats comes from web application attacks where criminals attempt to access user names and other commercially valuable information stored in web applications by finding a weakness in the application itself.

‘Brute force’, a trial and error method used to decode encrypted data through exhaustive effort rather than brainpower is another leading method of attack. Identified in 44% of the study’s cloud hosting provider environments and 49% of enterprise data centres, this attack type joins web application attacks and vulnerability scans as the most common cyber threats in cloud hosting provider environments.

Another common technique is attempted reconnaissance (or ‘recon’), which involves scanning to gather information (such as what operating system is used and what ports are open) to uncover vulnerabilities and lay the groundwork for a future attack.

Next on the danger list are malware/botnet attacks. these are programs disguised as legitimate applications that will instead inflict harm or damage to the computer or server by performing unauthorised actions such as deleting, blocking, modifying or copying data or disrupting the performance of the computer network by other means. the increasing take-up of VDI (Virtual Desktop Infrastructure) technology by companies has led to an increase in this type of attack, which more than doubled from 5% in 2012 to 11% in 2013.

Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks remain a huge problem for European businesses in 2014. In this type of attack a multitude of compromised systems target a single system. The flood of incoming messages effectively forces it to shut down, thereby denying service to legitimate users. Already this year we have seen high profile attacks of this nature on government organisations, banks, retailers, travel firms and facilities management companies. When the web is a key revenuegenerating source the cost of downtime resulting from a DDoS attack can quickly escalate to six or seven figure sums

KNOW YOUR ENEMY

Cyber security specialists attempt to beat hackers at their own game by setting up ‘honeypot sites’ – dummy websites that look like the real thing and are designed to attract attacks and collect data on the perpetrator. In this way, security specialists can gather valuable intelligence on attack vectors (methods used), which allows them to reverse engineer malware and write specific ‘signature content’ (protective code)to counter attempted strikes. this tactic was successfully deployed by yorkshire Bank in March last year.

SO WHAT CAN ORGANISATIONS DO TO PROTECT THEMSELVES AGAINST ATTACK?

  1. The overriding recommendation from information security professionals is to pursue what’s known as a ‘security in-depth strategy’, implementing security measures at every layer of your IT infrastructure – applications, network, host and base infrastructure. There are numerous security tools on the market today including web application firewall (WAF) technology, DDoS mitigation, intrusion detection sensors, deep packet forensics, anti virus software and network monitoring services to help your organisation implement this strategy.However, a common mistake organisations make is relying on products alone to solve the problem. Even the best products need people who can intelligently use the solution to its fullest capability.These specialists must be able to analyse the findings from these solutions, from the firewall down to the desktop, to build a full picture of security events being generated. Staying abreast of the latest vulnerabilities is also key to creating content that is up-to-date with the current threats. this will enable your organisation to react more quickly to any incidents.
  2. Be aware that whatever lengths you go to, employees can inadvertently pierce your investment so improve staff awareness of the threat. The growth of social media means increasingly sophisticated hackers can profile an employee and craft a convincing email in minutes enticing them to click on a link, unwittingly exposing your entire network. Repeatedly drum in the message that if an individual does not know who has sent the email they should not click on a link. Tell them to point the cursor over the hyperlink without clicking and a pop-up dialogue box will display the destination web or email address. Put escalation procedures in place for suspect emails and ensure these are well-publicised in order to mitigate your risk.
    Then there are the insider threats posed by a disgruntled employee or individual who has a financial arrangement with a third party to compromise your organisation’s systems. This can be countered by enforcing strict internal controls. For example, deploying technology that restricts the movement of sensitive data to an external USB device can greatly reduce the chance of confidential data being compromised by a disgruntled employee.
  3. Invest in threat intelligence to get one step ahead. Some hacking groups become very vocal before launching an attack as they try to gather followers so monitoring known social media sites can give you a 24- hour head start.

Sungard Availability Services partners with cyber security specialist Alert Logic to offer a range of joint services to protect customers and help them comply with legislation such as PCI DSS.

To receive a copy of the full report or to discuss solutions to your security issues please talk to your account manager, call +353 (0)1 467 3650 or email infoavail@sungardas.com.

1 www.alertlogic.com

DDoS MITIGATION – THE NEW BUSINESS ESSENTIAL

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With Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks becoming increasingly common – a new report shows the number of attacks skyrocketed by 18% in the first quarter of 20141 – DDoS mitigation is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but a fundamental requirement. It can make the difference between your firm being available to do business or being suddenly taken ‘off air’ for minutes, hours or even days.

As our lead story demonstrates, the Internet leaves companies open to a variety of attacks from all quarters and DDoS attacks are becoming increasingly common occurrences across all industry sectors. This year, a relatively new variation of DDoS threat has become particularly prevalent – ‘reflection’ and ‘amplification’ attacks, which have risen by 35% compared with Q4 2013 and 68% year-on-year.

“As the volume of attacks skyrocket, DDoS mitigation is no longer a ‘nice to have’ but a fundamental requirement”.

‘Amplification attacks’ target what’s known as Layer 3 and Layer 4 in an organisation’s IT infrastructure – the networking protocols used to send messages between servers over the internet such as User Diagram Protocol (UDP), transmission Control Protocol (TCP) and Network time Protocol (NTP). These strikes essentially involve requesting small data ‘packets’ – chunks of information – that trigger the return of large responses and magnify the scale of the attack.

Sungard Availability Services partner Cisco estimates that a monitor list (‘monlist’) attack on NTP servers, which requests the last 600 addresses that have used the server, can generate up to 5,500 times the original traffic volumes. This causes the cyber equivalent of a traffic jam, affecting an organisation’s ability to respond to customers as its outbound network quickly becomes congested. Worse still, the affected servers can be commandeered to participate in DDoS attacks on others.

The same ‘information overload’ technique can be used with Domain Name Systems (DNS). The attacker again spoofs the source address with the address they wish to attack and issues many thousands of look-up requests to DNS servers. Through various commands the attacker turns a small DNS query into a much larger payload designed to flood the target network and bring it to a standstill.

In the last two months alone we found around 100 customers were vulnerable to NTP attacks and alerted them to install a security patch on their NTP servers. Already this year, Sungard AS internet customers have been the target of six attacks over 500MB in size – with the largest attack (launched with cynical timing on April Fool’s Day) measuring some 7.5GB. The threat is not limited to any one particular sector although, typically, medium and large organisations are most commonly targeted. This year alone, we have seen indiscriminate attacks against travel companies, broadcasters, government organisations, outsourcers and financial institutions. When the web is a key revenue generating source, as it is for many of our customers, then the cost of downtime resulting from a DDoS attack can quickly escalate to six or seven figure sums.

So what can organisations do to protect themselves against this potentially devastating threat?

Sungard AS partners with the respected UK-based specialist RedSpam to offer a proven DDoS mitigation service to protect our customers. We first profile your IT estate to build a picture of normal use so we can identify within minutes when an attack is underway. At the first sign of unusual activity patterns we automatically divert internet traffic to a clearing house where it is scrubbed clean before being re-routed back to you. This cleansing process causes virtually no delay, other than the initial five to seven minutes it takes to switch the service and apply the right mitigation technique, but it has proven extremely effective in thwarting attacks. Under this service we are able to employ over 30 different techniques to deliver custom mitigation templates tailored to each client and threat level.

DDoS mitigation can be provided to Sungard AS customers as a standalone service through monthly subscription. If you’re concerned your organisation could be vulnerable to this growing threat please contact your account manager or email michael.smith@sungardas.com for an exploratory discussion.

1 Global DDoS Attack Report 2014 – Akamai Technologies

RELAX YOU’RE IN SAFE HANDS

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A new award was added to the Sungard Availability Services trophy cabinet following the CIR Business Continuity Awards 2014 when we won the prestigious ‘Best Contribution to Continuity & Resilience’ title in acknowledgement of our continued commitment to developing world-class products and services to meet customer needs.

We were thrilled to see several Sungard AS customers also enjoyed success on the night!

OUR CONGRATULATIONS TO:

CIR WINNERS

Sungard AS India scooped two impressive titles in the 2014 BCI India Awards – Business Continuity Provider of the Year for both Service and Product – and was shortlisted in the Business Continuity Innovation category. Sungard AS India will now join other regional winners competing in the BCI Global Awards, which take place during BCM World Conference & Exhibition in London this November.

In addition, Sungard AS was a finalist in the Managed Services Company of the year category in Ireland’s Tech Excellence Awards 2014, which we entered for the first time.

As a Sungard AS customer, these accolades show that when selecting your availability partner you made the right choice.

CLOUD RATED PCI DSS COMPLIANT

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Sungard Availability Services’ cloud has reached an important milestone in being rated compliant with the Payment Card Industry Data Security Standards (PCI DSS). Few, if any, other cloud providers can make this claim. It is proof that our cloud is secure, which is critically important to customers who accept credit card payments within a virtualised environment.

As recent data breaches involving US retailers Target and Neiman Marcus as well as eBay and Adobe have shown, PCI DSS compliance is no guarantee of data security but the controls it prescribes should be regarded as the starting point, a very important starting point. Firms that suffer a data breach and are not PCI DSS compliant can be fined by the card issuers for the loss of this data and may also be liable for the fraud losses incurred against these cards as well as the operational costs associated with replacing the accounts. Then there is the reputational damage and loss of customer goodwill.

Complying with the Standard is challenging for all organisations doing business in the cloud. Although they’re responsible for meeting PCI DSS requirements they have no access to the shared software infrastructure underlying their hosted cloud. So our scope as a cloud services provider has had to expand beyond compliance at the hardware level. The project to achieve compliance for our Enterprise Cloud Services (ECS) involved many Sungard AS teams across multiple geographies.

If you’d like to discuss how PCI DSS affects you or to arrange a security audit of your IT environment, contact your account manager, email infoavail@sungardas.com or call +353 (0)1 467 3650.

IL3 ACCREDITATION SETS SUNGARD AS APART

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Sungard Availability Services is ‘Pan Government Accredited’ up to what is termed Official-Sensitive (previously known as IL3 Restricted) level to provide secure cloud services to UK central and local government departments. Services will be offered via the online marketplace known as the G-Cloud Store.

This official recognition differentiates us from competitor services as we can now offer highly secure, low cost cloud services capable of hosting restricted UK government data. In fact, there are currently only three other service providers who have achieved this authorisation level for IaaS (Infrastructure as a Service) and PaaS (Platform as a Service) offerings.

Government departments will be able to benefit from Sungard AS’s agile cloud services in the knowledge that processes are underpinned by ItILv3, ISO 20000 and ISO 27001 certification. This eliminates the costly duplication of effort involved in gaining accreditation that, until now, has typically been carried out on a project-by-project basis.

Our secure cloud services will be accessible to UK government customers across the Public Services Network (PSN). This is the trusted shared infrastructure that connects increasing numbers
of organisations delivering public services to each other and to cloud-based and hosted services.

Sungard AS already has a track record of successful joint ventures with Independent Software Vendor (ISV) partners to deliver end-to-end solutions to public sector customers, hosting applications and data within our UK tier 3 data centres. We provide around-the-clock support and system monitoring, allowing public sector customers to retain control over their applications without the burden of monitoring the underlying IT infrastructure.

To discuss how our secure, low cost cloud services could benefit your organisation call us on +353 (0)1 467 3650 or email infoavail@sungardas.com

CUSTOMER SURVEY COMING SOON

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Sungard Availability Services’ annual customer experience survey will soon be underway and you may be among the 200 randomly selected customers asked to rate our performance by an external research firm. Please be reassured that your frank feedback is welcomed, valued and your comments treated in the utmost confidence. We view the survey findings as a vital barometer of our performance and, as you have seen, act on the findings as we strive to continually improve our service.

Thank you in advance for your help and look out for the top line results in a future issue of AVAIL!

If you are not amongst those contacted over the Summer months for the survey, rest assured that your opinion is still important to us. Please email AS.UK.SERVICEDESK@SUNGARD.COM at any time.

MRP EVOLVES TO BECOME RECOVERY AS A SERVICE

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“7 out of 10 customers recovering by themselves continue to run into difficulty and not achieve their targeted RTOs. It’s not surprising then that the more enlightened CIOs are demanding what we call a ‘Predictable Recovery Experience’,” explains Daren Howell, Sungard Availability Services’ Proposition Marketing Manager.

In response to customer feedback, our ground-breaking Managed Recovery Programme (MRP) is being transformed to provide customers with even greater value. At the same time, it is being renamed as Recovery as a Service (RaaS).

In the disaster recovery market there are many narrow, cloud based recovery service offerings called RaaS that are just a small subset of what Sungard AS can provide. They typically focus on the technology. Sungard AS’ RaaS spans all aspects of the business – the People, Process and Technology. The new RaaS service allows customers to remain in control and dictate the business outcomes to be achieved while we provide the skilled people with the time to carry out change management between production and recovery systems and then apply the processes to recover the business. This means, when we are called upon to do so, we can consistently perform tests and recover the business applications to agreed service levels.

NEW CAPABILITY

Behind the service element are automated tools used to understand application interdependencies and to speed up the recovery process. Some are brand new and some are from what customers would recognise as managed services such as our Recover2Cloud service. Recover2Cloud was introduced to the UK last year. We have since updated that capability to run on dedicated platforms to replicate Windows and Linux physical and virtual servers and machines.

The latest new technology Sungard AS will deploy is a discovery tool that when installed on customers’ networks will search for all applications, processes and IT equipment to give you a complete picture of your IT environment. For many CIOs this alone is of tremendous value, cutting hours from an otherwise tedious, expensive and manual process. Sungard AS’ automated discovery & dependency mapping process also scans and flags on-going changes to the IT estate, making it easier to ensure the recovery backup capability keeps pace with the production estate.

By tiering your applications and processes, in terms of their values / criticality to the business and their dependencies, Sungard AS creates and uses the recovery processes and the most appropriate mix of availability solutions to return a recovery performance that meets service levels agreed with the customer. Sungard AS isn’t tied to a single platform for recovery.

Matthew White, Sales Manager for RaaS added, “Recovery as a Service is not just for those customers who experience difficult tests and recoveries but also those who prefer to focus resources on the production projects their business depends. Many customers are already benefitting from reduced RTOs and increased disaster preparedness that the new RaaS Service Level brings.”

For more information on Recovery as a Service please talk to your account manager or call +353 (0)1 467 3650 for details.

WHY ‘OFFSHORE’ SHOULD NOT MEAN ‘OFF THE RADAR’

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A new Gartner report1 shows India remains a popular destination for European and US companies looking to offshore operations to a cost-competitive, relatively stable and scalable location. The analyst’s assessment of nine AsiaPac countries reveals India is the clear worldwide leader in revenue terms.

With an average of 19% of planned applications spending for 2014 being directed offshore globally, sourcing managers are taking a keen interest in which offshore locations their services are delivered from. Offshoring business process services to a destination like India can undoubtedly deliver huge returns but companies must consider cultural differences and country-specific threats to reap the promised benefits. Failure to do so means companies run the risk of ‘reshoring’ (or ‘onshoring’). In recent years firms like Apple, British Pot Noodle producer Symingtons and model aircraft manufacturer Hornby have returned to their home manufacturing base with their metaphorical tail between their legs.

A very different risk landscape

The threats facing companies and offshored operations in India are somewhat different to the domestic markets to which European and North American companies are accustomed. Businesses need to thoroughly consider and address India’s unique country-specific risks in addition to the universal threats faced by all organisations today. For example, that old fallback in the event of disaster – ‘working from home’, either using the cloud or a Virtual Private Network (VPN) – is not a viable solution in India due to unreliable connectivity in a domestic setting.

Sungard AS has a thriving operation in India helping the domestic and international business community mitigate these threats. Multinationals, in particular, increasingly expect the same high level of business continuity (BC) provision enjoyed by their operations in Europe or the US for commercial and regulatory reasons. The Business Continuity Institute (BCI), the world’s leading body for BC professionals, recognised Sungard AS India’s market leadership with two awards in 2014 – Business Continuity Provider of the Year for Service (Workplace Services and RaaS) and Product (Software) for the second year running.

“Multinationals increasingly expect the same high level of business continuity provision enjoyed by their operations in Europe or the US”.

Seven of the 15 top technology outsourcing companies are based in India but more than 70% of BPO companies operate from a single location.

Added to this, many Indian companies fail to meet the BC requirements of their parent2. To meet growing demand from India-based operations wanting to meet accepted international BC standards such as ISO 22301, Sungard AS India operates a flourishing BCM automation and consultancy business providing expert guidance and award-winning planning, notification and incident management software solutions.

It also offers over 2,000 seats (360 syndicated with equitable sharing and more than 1,600 dedicated) across three highly resilient work area recovery centres located in Noida, Thane and Chennai with several more planned. These fully equipped alternative workplaces enable offshore operations to enjoy the same protection as sites closer to home and ensure domestic outsourcing companies can deliver the reliable service their international customers expect.

Now, signifying the maturity of the country’s BC provision, Sungard AS has introduced Recovery-as-a- Service (RaaS) offering Indian enterprises SLA-driven recovery timeframes for mission-critical IT business functions on an affordable pay-as-you-go basis.

Under the fully managed service Sungard AS takes responsibility for the entire recovery process with skilled recovery specialists driving solution deployment, performing 24/7 monitoring, troubleshooting and recovery testing to ensure the failover environment is ready in the event of any prolonged outage. Uniquely, Sungard AS also performs a full recovery within contractually committed SLAs.

 

HERE’S OUR VIEW OF THE COUNTRY’S TOP EIGHT ISSUES – you might find the results suprising.

Offshoring to India risks

If you would like practical help and guidance from exploratory experts, or to arrange an exploratory meeting, call +353 (0)1 467 3650 or email infoavail@sungardas.com

1Leading Locations for Offshore Services in Asia Pacific 2014: Still Growing but Facing Increasing Competition
2NASSCOM (National Association of Software and Services Companies) 2010/11

AVAILABILITY NOW A SOURCE OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

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Welcome to the spring issue of AVAIL in which our lead story talks about how availability is no longer just “an IT thing” but a tangible source of competitive advantage. It’s not simply about technology uptime and downtime but, increasingly, about having an IT infrastructure that can perform and adapt at the speed of the business.

We bring you exciting news of Sungard AS developments to help organisations achieve availability by supporting flexible working and improving organisational resilience. These include a new dedicated workplace recovery facility in Wroclaw, Poland, a town fast becoming the BPO capital of Europe, and the imminent launch of Virtual Desktop, a fully managed workforce enablement service.

Elsewhere, our feature on Sungard AS’s Managed Recovery Programme (MRP) explains why the service isn’t only for companies that experience problems with testing or recovery but for any organisation that wants to make more productive use of their employees’ time.

We are pleased to announce that Andrew Barber, most recently Chief Information Security Officer at Xchanging has joined Sungard AS as Chief Security Officer (CSO) for the EMEA & APAC regions. Watch out for the official meet and greet in the next edition of AVAIL!

We now have a distinctive new brand to mark our separation from our former parent, SunGard Data Systems on 31 March 2014. You might be wondering how, if at all, this will affect your company and the answer is from a customer viewpoint it is very much `business as usual’. You can be confident we will continue with our strategy, investment plans and portfolio of services delivered by the  same highly trained, well motivated workforce. This is a hugely positive step for us as we see significant benefits in the sharp strategic focus that independence will bring, helping us serve you, our valued customers, even better.
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 infoavail@sungardas.com

 

Gary Watson
General Manager Ireland

INFORMATION AVAILABILITY: A KEY SOURCE OF COMPETITIVE ADVANTAGE

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“Availability” means different things to different people. For many, it connotes maintaining business as usual, or resilience to known or unknown disruptions – the traditional BC/DR mind-set. But in today’s terms, it’s increasingly about IT infrastructure that can perform and adapt at the speed of business. That makes availability a strategic imperative for all organisations – no longer just pure-play internet businesses or low-latency financial trading.

Multiple factors are behind this shift. More organisations than ever are having to meet customer expectations of round-the-clock access to information and services. Mobilisation of the workforce is another driver, as even office-based employees are switching between multiple devices in the course of the day, whether corporate-issue or BYO.

But the single biggest factor is that removing unnecessary time to access information and services can create significant differentiation and revenue uplift.

Consumerisation has driven expectations of gratifyingly quick and simple access to answers or fulfilment that yesterday’s enterprise software often fails to provide. Access to high-speed connectivity and the latest gadgets at home reduces our tolerance for slow networks and ageing, unreliable equipment in the workplace. And a one second delay in page load can cause a 7% drop in conversions, as almost half of consumers expect a page to load in two seconds or less.

The trouble is, when considering availability, organisations tend to limit their definition of IT infrastructure to the traditional, feature-heavy technology elements of the data centre. But this neglects the influence of people and processes on availability – skills and experience that many organisations are hard-pressed to deliver internally. This is where outsourcing can convey tremendous advantage: by putting expertise and resources on tap to support the pursuit of All-Time™ availability.

Frictionless transition
A successful outsource partnership needs to focus on delivering the right solution for the right situation, with the supporting technology platform able to provide twenty-four-seven resilience and availability. But on-boarding is a crucial part of the data centre transformation process, as organisations look to gain experience in migrating application workloads between environments.

Mission-critical applications in particular need to be transferred quickly and seamlessly to avoid business interruption. A combination of consultative support and a migration gateway can help organisations on-board their data into a dedicated environment that acts as a staging post. Once user acceptance testing has been completed, the workload can be moved into production with confidence that demands for reliability and responsiveness will be met.

Compliant operations
All organisations, even those that aren’t in heavily regulated industries, need to maintain compliant operations. For example, any business that handles card payments from customers needs to meet the payment card industry data security standard (PCI DSS) or risk severe financial penalties and the right to accept card payments being revoked – unthinkable for any online merchant.

The PCI standard provides an actionable framework for developing a robust security process, from prevention and detection to appropriate incident response, but there’s no such thing as an off-the-shelf PCI-compliant environment. However, a managed service provider should be able to determine and meet a company’s requirements for delivering a best-fit, compliant cardholder data environment – one that reduces complexity and accelerates the identification of and response to security threats.

Data jurisdiction is becoming a more prominent consideration than ever, in light of recent headlines around improper use and mandatory disclosure of information – especially when data is stored in multiple locations or accessible by multiple parties. When it comes to outsourcing, it’s vital to have a definitive picture of where, how and with whom data is stored, processed and shared. And data jurisdiction isn’t just an important checkpoint on the journey to a managed or hosted environment – it’s also crucial to back-up management and the ability to export the data to another third party, or indeed bring it back in-house.

Reduced vulnerability
The subtext of business disruption used to be limited to natural or man-made disasters. But nowadays, derailment is more likely to come from malicious cyber activity. Many commonly-used access control techniques were designed for enterprise data centres and, as such, are poorly suited to third party environments, as processes that were previously behind a firewall are exposed to the internet.

High profile Distributed Denial of Service (DDoS) attacks have recently been attributable for putting a major high street bank and the Ministry of Justice temporarily out of action. These cyber-assaults produce a flood of traffic that overloads the target organisation’s website and quickly shuts down its operations.

A managed service provider must therefore fully grasp the escalating importance of security on today’s business environment, and help companies bolster their security posture to maintain continuous availability. DDoS mitigation, based on real-time event analysis and reporting, means a response can be mounted against such security threats before they can adversely affect operations.

Availability: not just an IT thing
Until now, availability has been measured in terms of the number and duration of service interruptions, or the percentage of services and infrastructure being monitored.

But to reflect the more intangible nature of availability, organisations need to reduce reliance on traditional IT-driven KPIs and the binary notion of uptime and downtime, in favour of greater focus on business outcomes. That means using broader customer and employee satisfaction metrics, such as Net Promoter Score, to understand how time to information affects performance, and build the business case for availability investment.

That’s because availability is not just an IT project but a continuous improvement process – one that is key to building the foundation for new opportunities, sustainable growth and unwavering brand loyalty.

KEEPING YOUR BUSINESS AFLOAT

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As demonstrated by the UK’s recent floods, weather conditions can pose considerable problems for businesses even in Britain with its relatively moderate climate. Several Sungard AS customers have needed to invoke their Workplace Recovery contracts while many more have contacted us to ask for advice or put us on standby, particularly in the Thames Valley area.

Yet, interestingly, comparing today’s floods with those of 2007 we are seeing a marked reduction in the number of invocations, which reflects changing working practices. In order to meet market demands for an ‘always-on’ workforce, companies today are adopting more sophisticated availability models and Sungard AS is increasingly providing more production IT services from our data centres.

That’s because in today’s connected world, customers and partners expect responses instantly – no matter what difficulties your company may be experiencing. If one business process or even your wider supply chain is affected by the impact of flooding, it could be months or even years before the damage to those relationships can be repaired. Even if your own business is not directly affected by flooding you could experience knock-on effects if you rely on goods or services from suppliers in hard-hit areas.

Time invested in contingency planning is likely to prove time well spent. When we supported law firm Irwin Mitchell during severe floods, while their building and infrastructure suffered £2m worth of damage, good planning ensured the firm was able to maintain near normal levels of service. Although flood waters engulfed the ground floor of two of its office buildings we were able to relocate 50 contact centre staff to one of our nearby recovery centres overnight to minimise downtime. In fact, productivity at their call centre, which handles some 7,000 calls daily, dropped just 2%. But without an effective plan in place the potential reputational damage and financial repercussions could have proved catastrophic.

The vital questions you need to ask

For businesses facing any flood risk at all, however small, the priorities must be to ensure employees remain safe and the business is able to continue running uninterrupted. Questions you should ask yourself include:

Are your premises likely to be affected by flooding? If so, you will need to consider alternative workplace facilities both in the surrounding area and further afield should the situation worsen.

Access to important data and your office is obviously critical – can your employees still get in to work, will public transport be working and can your suppliers meet their obligations?

Are you relying too heavily on remote working technologies? Severe disruption to local power or communications infrastructure can scupper plans for employees to work from home.

Most importantly of all, is your data secure and backed up? Damage to physical infrastructure can, in most cases, be restored – the same cannot always be said for crucial customer and business data.

VIRTUAL DESKTOP SERVICE ON ITS WAY

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Coming soon, Sungard AS will launch Virtual Desktop, a new workforce enablement service to support more flexible working. The managed service will not only allow executives to work wherever they want but also adapt to seasonal peaks and troughs in demand and staffing levels.

Uniquely, it will be fully integrated with Sungard AS’s disaster recovery facilities, allowing customers to recover to whichever Sungard AS or Regus location is most convenient. Developed in collaboration with market leaders Cisco and Citrix, the Virtual Desktop service offers organisations the opportunity to achieve 100% availability by choosing a failover option.

The service is already attracting considerable interest from companies keen to reduce their cost of ownership, eliminate the annual PC refresh cycle and gain greater control and security over their desktops.

Full details will be revealed soon – watch this space!

CONTINUED EXPANSION PUTS US IN POLE POSITION

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Sungard AS has opened a new dedicated facility in Wroclaw, Poland.

The town is fast becoming the financial Business Process Outsourcing (BPO) capital of Europe due to the high number of university graduates studying banking there and its proximity to the major financial capitals in Europe, compared with other countries in Asia providing similar services.

All 180 seats in the new workplace recovery centre have already been snapped up by a major international investment bank but Sungard AS is looking to take on a second site nearby to extend capacity.

Wroclaw city council views Sungard AS as being integral to its strategy of achieving BPO prominence and fosters a supportive business environment. With its own airport and good road and rail connections, the town is well connected. It is also close to the Czech border, raising the possibility of a two country recovery solution.

For more information speak to your account manager or call us on 0800 143 413 or email infoavail@sungardas.com

PLANS & TESTING DON’T DELIVER OUTCOMES – PEOPLE & PROCESSES DO

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By Bob Bates, Delivery Manager, Technology Consultant and Murray Truman, ICT Disaster Recovery Consultant

Companies now recognise they cannot afford to be unavailable for any significant period of time – customers will simply go to a competitor – and, consequently, organisations are becoming ever more aggressive with their availability and recovery goals. Adding to the challenge, globalisation means today businesses need to recover on a wider geographic scale than ever before.

There are many reasons why organisations fail to meet high availability and recovery targets – among them lack of resources, skills, testing and plans – but one of the most common problems is recovery plans being out of sync with the production environment. This is perhaps unsurprising when with today’s complex production environments just one change a month per system can result in more than 10,000 configuration changes before each annual test.

In addition, the majority of organisations focus testing on recovering IT systems rather than recovering business services and applications, creating a potential shortfall in meeting stakeholder expectations when recovery is for real.

Last year, we developed our Managed Recovery Programme (MRP) to help organisations align their recovery plans to their business continuity objectives and provide the skills and resources to fully document the recovery processes and undertake the recovery during testing and invocation. This service enables organisations to focus their valuable resources on their production environment.

The underlying philosophy of the service is to recover customers’ business processes and applications, not just their servers and reduce downtime to the absolute minimum. We recognised that by applying our Business and ICT Continuity expertise, as well as our experience of performing recoveries and managing critical systems, we could remove unnecessary pain points while giving customers the assurance of achieving an application recovery time to an SLA.

But MRP is not just for those customers who experience problems. Regular testing is vital – whether to comply with regulatory or audit requirements or provide stakeholder reassurance – but it can be costly, time-consuming and takes resources away from running production projects the business depends on.

For this reason, MRP can benefit all types of organisation, not only those that have experienced the headaches and expense of a difficult test or recovery as we can run the tests on their behalf.

Here are some of the reasons why MRP is proving an attractive proposition for many companies:

  • Plugs skills gaps and people shortages – tests can be planned but an invocation occurs without warning. Our onsite recovery specialists perform successful recoveries week in, week out – not once or twice a year.
  • The reassurance of 24/7 service availability – and compliance statements for regulatory or audit purposes.
  • Backed by service level agreements.
  • Allows the testing budget to be ringfenced.
  • Reduces the risk of tests being cancelled due to staff shortages or business priorities, which only increases the likelihood of future failures.
  • Lessens dependence on the skills and knowledge of individual employees/contractors, which creates a vacuum when they leave.
  • Eliminates the issues that typically frustrate the recovery process – the MRP change management process ensures the recovery environment stays in sync with production and remains aligned to business recovery objectives.
  • Frees up staff to focus on projects that add value to the business – people cost money: could their time be better spent concentrating on the production environment rather than testing? Using MRP to undertake routine tasks can be more cost-efficient.
  • Automates elements of recovery through the use of toolsets for critical applications.

So how does MRP work in practice?

MRP is delivered following a 10 stage ITIL-based process. From the start, Sungard AS deploys an MRP team to work with the customer to review existing practices and develop a recovery solution that will deliver against the business recovery objectives. A complete set of ITIL-focused processes and documentation is produced so that at time of test or invocation Sungard AS is in a position to recover the customer’s environment, to the agreed level of service, allowing them to concentrate on their core activities.

Service design and onboarding

This first stage is a recovery information gathering exercise that starts with a workshop involving core management team and technicians to enable Sungard AS to fully understand the application landscape and assess the requirements of a recovery solution. We then start developing a recovery solution and associated plans and procedures to meet the business continuity objectives.

Service transition

Following the initial set of documentation we conduct a Procedure Verification Test in partnership with the customer to verify that all the knowledge gained, documentation produced and solution implemented are all valid and proven. It’s about proving we are able to achieve the customer’s objectives before moving on to an SLA-backed managed recovery service.

Service operation

The service now moves into the ‘business as usual’ state whereby the operations teams conduct tests, and recover applications on a client’s behalf. We embed ourselves into the client change management process in order to manage change control throughout the life of the contract, maintain recovery documentation and conduct regular reviews with key stakeholders to ensure contract schedules are aligned, services are up-to-date and that the recovery strategy continues to meet the changing needs of the business.

Read how HCL Insurance BPO Services Ltd benefited from our Managed Recovery Programme.

For more information talk to your account manager or call us on +353 (0)1 467 3650.

HCL INSURANCE BPO SERVICES LTD FINDS PARTNERSHIP TAKES THE PAIN OUT OF RECOVERY

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In the highly competitive business processing market, cost control and availability are both critical factors. Transformational outsourcing provider HCL Insurance BPO Services Ltd needed a cost-effective recovery solution that would minimise downtime and mitigate financial loss for its clients in 20 countries worldwide.

With so many clients relying on HCL Insurance BPO Services Ltd services, unavailability of critical systems even for a fraction of a second would have serious ramifications. As well as having a devastating effect on customer service, it could lead to direct financial loss through breaches of Service Level Agreements (SLAs) and FCA Conduct Risk guidelines. Ann Daddy, head of IT services for HCL Insurance BPO Services Ltd, says, “Any downtime could have severe financial repercussions running into hundreds of thousands of pounds.”

As part of its efforts to ensure uninterrupted operations, HCL Insurance BPO Services Ltd conducts annual recovery tests, which used to involve bringing staff over from India, incurring considerable travel and subsistence costs in the process. Sungard AS suggested HCL Insurance BPO Services Ltd would benefit from its Managed Recovery Programme (MRP) in which Sungard AS takes responsibility for the full recovery lifecycle, providing a contractually guaranteed recovery time during testing and disasters.

We developed the service after witnessing customers repeatedly struggle with their disaster recovery (DR) tests. The majority fail due to the difficulty of keeping DR plans up-to-date in the face of constant business change – hardly surprising when just one change per system per month can result in more than 10,000 configuration changes before every annual test. We recognised we could apply our decades of expertise and experience of performing recoveries and managing critical systems to eliminate an unnecessary pain point for our customers. What’s more, we are able to manage HCL Insurance BPO Services Ltd tests and recoveries at a far lower cost and risk than they could ever hope to achieve themselves.

The enhanced service Sungard AS provides means HCL Insurance BPO Services Ltd can now perform recoveries with a smaller number of staff needing to be physically present at the recovery centre. As a result, HCL Insurance BPO Services Ltd has benefited from ongoing cost savings of more than £50,000 a year and has dramatically improved recovery times by at least 50%. Equally importantly, as Ann Daddy points out, “One of the many benefits of Sungard AS’s Managed Recovery Programme is that we no longer have any single points of failure.”

Ann Daddy says she and her senior management team “can’t praise the very professional technical team we’ve been dealing with highly enough. Partnership doesn’t begin to describe the relationship that has formed between our two companies. We’ve worked proactively and productively together towards a common goal.”

Read the full case study

MAKING A SPLASH WITH FISH

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Sungard AS continues to develop innovative applications to serve niche markets and has partnered with a number of independent software vendors to provide specialist police IT applications as a service that deliver real operational benefits.

Among the applications ‘powered by Sungard AS’ is FISH, an electronic forensics and imaging service that dramatically improves processing times for forensic identification of fingerprints, footprints, chemicals and other crucial evidence. We we will provide the FISH service through our secure IL3 cloud.

fish capture

While these applications are designed specifically for UK police forces, Sungard AS is all about providing IT solutions to business issues so if you would like an application delivered as a service, contact your service manager or call us on +353 (0)1 467 3650 to discuss the development of a tailormade service that meets your express needs.

PREPARING FOR MARKET CHANGES

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In its latest report, respected analyst 451 Research has described as “timely” our strategic reorganisation of service delivery around new tooling to reflect market demand for greater transparency and consistency in the management of contracts.

As you may already know, Sungard AS has introduced two service management portals – Viewpoint for customers and Spotlight for employees – both of which share the same infrastructure and tooling. The Sungard AS cloud services portal is currently separate from Viewpoint and Spotlight but our plan is for all the portals to be brought together in a single unified customer interface in 2015.

Commenting on our investment in these automation tools that give customers the ability to manage both their cloud services and the rest of their IT infrastructure from ‘a single pane of glass’, the analyst notes approvingly that we are “taking a pragmatic approach to service delivery, enabling accounts to opt for a more customised experience” if they prefer, “a trait of the traditionally higher value service providers”.

The flagship Sungard AS account making use of this new service delivery model is Serco, which due to its size and complexity has four dedicated service delivery managers based on Serco premises working alongside its in-house service delivery team.

451 Research acknowledge that we have changed our recruitment policy to reflect the broader skill set required from a service delivery manager with new recruits having “strong technical capabilities in order to be able to challenge the technical teams… and talk to customers about the impact of infrastructure issues.”

The analyst report concludes, “As selective outsourcing increases in the market and service integration and management (SIAM) emerges more strongly as a buyer requirement, Sungard AS is in a strong position with its tooling and staffing investments to respond both as a service provider in its own right and as part of a wider provider ecosystem.”

AND THE WINNER IS…

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It’s that time of year and we are thrilled to announce that we were selected as Cisco’s UKI Cisco Cloud Provider Partner of the Year at their recent Cisco Partner Summit in Las Vegas.

Sungard AS is also in contention for a number of other industry accolades including:

The CIR Business Continuity Awards 2014

Once again, we and several Sungard AS customers are in the running for awards in categories such as Resilience in Infrastructure, Most Effective Recovery, Business Continuity Team, Business Continuity Initiative and Resilience Strategy. We have also sponsored the ‘Public Sector/Not-for-Profit Continuity Manager of the Year’ category.

The shortlist has just been published and we were delighted to learn that we are finalists in both our categories alongside those customers we supported en route to becoming finalists in all of their categories.

The winners will be announced at a glittering awards ceremony on Thursday 29 May at London’s Hilton Park Lane. We wish all those customers who have entered good luck on the night – we will be cheering you on!

7th Annual Global Datacentre & Cloud Awards 2014

Sungard AS has been nominated in no fewer than three categories of these prestigious awards – cloud services, managed services and data centre. We hope to have good news to share with you following the awards
dinner on 12 June.

Alsbridge Innovation Awards

Sungard AS has submitted an entry in the inaugural year of this new award scheme created by the boutique outsourcing consultancy Alsbridge.

Watch this space!