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Sungard Availability Services
Copyright 2017, Faulkner Information Services. All Rights Reserved.
Docid: 00011272
Publication Date: 1705
Report Type: PRODUCT
Preview
Sungard Availability Services, which was previously a division of SunGard Data Systems
and is now an independent company, provides business continuity, cloud and
hosting, and disaster recovery services. The vendor competes with some high-profile names in the services industry including
IBM, but differentiates itself by focusing solely on an "Information Availability"
strategy instead of offering a wide range of services.
Report Contents::
Description
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Sungard Availability Services (Sungard AS) began as one of the four operating division of SunGard Data
Systems. It split off from the parent company in 2014 and is now fully
independent. Sungard AS features a lineup of recovery,
managed, and consulting services that allow its clients to maintain uninterrupted access to their critical IT systems.
As one of the first vendors in the commercial
disaster recovery field, Sungard features a comprehensive line of business continuity
and information availability offerings. The company serves more than 7,000 customers
with approximately five million square feet of operations space at over 90
hardened IT facilities in addition to another 18 mobile facilities in strategic
locations. More than half of Sungard’s customers are small- to medium-sized
enterprises and over 70 percent of Fortune 1000 firms use the vendor’s
services.
The company has had experience
delivering its disaster recovery services after a number of high profile events,
including Hurricane Katrina in the US Gulf region, the blackouts that affected
the northeastern US in 2003, and the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks.
The company is also prepared to deal with potential health pandemics through connections
with health institutions such as the World Health Organization (WHO),
the Centers for Disease Control (CDC), and keeping track of the plans of national governments for
dealing with pandemics.
| Vendor |
|
Name: Sunard Availability Services |
Sungard AS provides its customers with five core service portfolios: Cloud
and Hosting; Disaster Recovery Services and Business Continuity; Data and
Disaster Recovery Centers; Managed Application Cloud; and IT Consulting
Services.
Applications
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Sungard Availability Services’ offerings are outlined below.
Cloud and Hosting
Sungard’s cloud services deliver infrastructure with various layers of data
protection to promote application availability. Sungard protects the cloud utilizing managed hosting, on-demand and
virtualized infrastructure along with multiple layers of data protection for
application availability and recovery. Sungard’s Cloud and Hosting portfolio consists of:
- Cloud Services – Customers can choose from self-managed, cloud
hosting or managed, multi-tenant hosting dependent upon the applications and
workload specifications. An elastic infrastructure adds security and
performance for dedicated compute and storage. - Hosting Services – For those customers who aren’t interested in or
don’t have the staff necessary to manage cloud services, Sungard handles the
maintenance and management of cloud services from facilities that meet the
ISO 20000-1 standard. - Managed Security Services – Sungard not only protects the cloud and
hosted data but workloads and applications with its 24/7 staff of experts.
Following a vulnerability assessment, there are various security levels
including network and Web application firewalls, virtual private networks,
intrusion detection and prevention, access management tools, integrity
monitoring, and log management.
Disaster Recovery Services and Business Continuity Management
For times when a disaster — whether a burglary, a flood, or a cyber attack
— does strike, Sungard provides continuity services to enable businesses to get
back up and running. Sungard’s main offerings in this area include:
- Cloud-Based Recovery – This fully managed recovery offering moves
data to a secure location until it is ready for restoration. Replication
services deliver a fully working copy of the customer’s environment in a
ready-to-use state. Backup and vaulting are utilized for less
mission-critical applications or for long-term data retention. Customers can
also pick and choose which processes they want to handle internally for
recovery and which should be delegated to Sungard. - Systems and Data Recovery – Beginning with a copy of the customer’s
production data, Sungard moves the data to its recovery center where it is
protected until it is needed. - Recovery Management – Sungard offers its Managed Recovery Program (MRP)
and each customer within this service receives a dedicated Technical Service
Delivery Manager as the single point of contact. The Technical Service
Delivery Manager oversees recovery procedure development and documentation,
recovery procedure execution, recovery management during testing and during
a disaster, post-testing reports and review, and regular status reports.
Applications during recovery are restored to normal performance. - Business Continuity Management – Promoting business resiliency
enables organizations to function during a disruption but it also encourages
various benefits including documenting and meeting objectives, addressing
concerns and responding to customer questions while also preparing for
audits. Sungard offers assessment and gap analysis, strategy and planning,
and training and exercises to help organizations prepare for downtime. - Planning and Management Software – Sungard’s Assurance software package
consists of an intuitive interface that is intended to be simple to use so
that minimal training is needed. It is mobile-friendly so that users
can be connected from any location at any time.
Data and Disaster Recovery Centers
Since many companies don’t have the needed space and additional
infrastructure to ensure that operations are back up and running in a timely
manner after an urgent incident, Sungard provides the data centers and disaster
recovery centers specifically for this purpose. Among the options that customers
can choose from are:
- Colocation Services – Sungard’s Colocation service provides clients with an enterprise-class
infrastructure and global data center network that is vendor-neutral and
platform-independent for critical applications. A typical Sungard data center
includes redundant infrastructure and engineering; environmental controls; power
management; fire detection and protection systems; physical security; and
connectivity. - Network Services – Sungard offers data, voice, private, and public
Internet services, and network management via a redundant and secure network
infrastructure. - Workplace Recovery – Employees can return to work after a disaster
with one of two options: a Sungard mobile recovery center or onsite at a
Sungard facility.
Managed Application Cloud
A combination of cloud convenience, scalability, and speed coupled with
infrastructure offerings enables businesses to move from legacy systems for
their applications. Since moving to the cloud is such a huge undertaking and can
take months or longer for full delivery, Sungard can assess application
requirements and determine the appropriate infrastructure for this
venture.
- Application Cloud Services – With Sungard’s portfolio, customers
don’t need to purchase, host, and run their own cloud infrastructure. Cloud
environments include both self-managed and private clouds. - Application Management Services – Sungard’s dedicated team delivers
patches, fixes, and updates to keep applications running smoothly. Support
is offered for Oracle, SAP, and Microsoft SQL.
Consulting
Sungard offers clients a range of consulting
service for developing plans and processes for their IT strategies and face
challenges. Within its consulting arm are the following services:
- Business Continuity
- Information Security
- IT Disaster Recovery
- Cloud
Environment
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Sungard Availability Services’ offerings support more than 30 computing
platforms, ranging from Unix and Windows operating systems, Oracle databases,
and enterprise applications from vendors such as Oracle and SAP.
Support
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Sungard’s business continuity and disaster recovery services are used by
clients across the globe, with the company keeping its customers around the
world up and running uninterrupted. Sungard offers support 24x7x365 via a
network of specialists who utilize more than 90 hardened, global
facilities.
Pricing
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Sungard’s Availability Services are available directly through the vendor.
Pricing of the services will depend upon each client’s specific needs and
environment.
Major Competitors
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While there are many vendors in the marketplace who are offering disaster
recovery, cloud services, and hosting, Sungard sees most competition from the
following companies:
- IBM
- Verio
- Rackspace
- Dell EMC
Web Links
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- Dell EMC: https://www.emc.com/
- IBM: https://www.ibm.com/
- Microsoft: https://www.microsoft.com/
- Oracle: https://www.oracle.com/
- Rackspace: https://www.rackspace.com/
- SAP: http://www.sap.com/
- SunGard: https://www.sungard.com/
- Sungard Availability Services: http://www.sungardas.com/
- Verio: https://www.verio.com/
About the Author
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Karen M. Spring is a staff editor for Faulkner Information Services,
tracking high-tech industries, including network security, ERP, CRM, network
management, Internet security, and software tools. She writes regularly on
high-tech topics for publications in the k-12 and higher education industry.
Previously, Ms. Spring was a marketing specialist for two computer distributors,
working closely with such clients as 3Com, IBM, Okidata, Unisys, and Acer.
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