Re: Disaster Recovery Services

Jeff,

It's been awhile, but when I was working for a large blood bank we did an
exhaustive evaluation of BRS vendors and ended up with IBM as our vendor.  As I
said, it's been a while, and some of the particulars may have changed, but some
important elements in our decision included:

Access to AS/400's - IBM boasted of having over 200 AS/40's that could be 
pressed
into service in the event of a regional disaster.  Being a bloodbank, we were
different from most companies in that a regional disaster could require us to
ramp-up services rather than allow us to scale back.  We couldn't afford to show
up at a BRS site and get turned away because someone else got their first.

Access to equipment - IBM also claimed to have an excess of other equipment such
as modems, controllers, MAU's Hubs, etc.  Their claim that they could "get
antything seemed much more plausible than other vendors.

Cost to Declare - IBM had no fee for declaring a disaster.  If you declared a
disaster boxes would be assigned on a first come first-served basis... but there
was no fee for declaring a disaster.... even if you changed your mind and did 
not
use the BRS site.  I'm told that some BRS vendors require payment in advance of
occupying the BRS site (They're no dummies....  they no that a high percentage 
of
companies that experience data loss do not fully recover... if at all).

There were other considerations, but I recall these as being the big three...

One more piece of advice... a disaster plan that is not tested regularly is
really not that valuable at all.

hth,

jte


Jeff Schmehl wrote:

> This might be slightly off topic. If so, I apologize.  We are recurrently
> reviewing our disaster recovery services and have received quotes from IBM
> Comdisco, SunGard and IBM.   We are currently with one company, I used to
> work for one of the others and am somewhat biased so I'd like to get some
> feedback from others on the services.  Has anyone had any problems with any
> of these companies regarding Disaster Recovery?  Any contract issues?
> Support issues?  Any areas where one company excels more than another? and
> so on.
>
> Any feedback would be appreciated.
>
> Thank you.
>
> Jeff Schmehl
>
> ============================================
> Jeff Schmehl
> IT Department
> Brambles Equipment Services, Inc.
> (704) 944-3024
> (704) 944-3033 fax
> (877) 944-3030 Help Desk
> jeff.schmehl@besi.com
> ============================================
>
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--
John Earl                    johnearl@400security.com
The PowerTech Group          206-575-0711
PowerLock Network Security   www.400security.com
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