One area of the information technology sector that is likely to experience significant growth rates in the near future will be the provision of services that, rather than having an immediate and tangible effect on a company’s business performance, are aimed at supporting the increasingly complex technology that over 80% of businesses say they now depend upon. One such service is disaster recovery, especially since, according to a recent Romtec survey, only 39% of companies have any contingency plans at all for disaster recovery, despite the fact that the same survey found that 75% of those firms admitted that they would be out of business after one day without their main computer. Sherwood Computer Management, part of Sherwood Computer Services Plc and UK supplier of disaster recovery services for Prime and ICL users, reckons that the climate is changing, and, to capitalise on the more widespread belief that a disaster recovery contingency is essential, has expanded the range of its services and support for machines from DEC and IBM, and Unix on Pyramid and Sequent, and has set up a new standby centre in Leeds to complement the existing one in Salisbury. Sales director Jim Newell says that the Sherwood philosophy is still prevention is better than cure, and the Gloucester-based company offers a number of consultancy services to minimise the risk of a disaster occurring in the first place – disaster, by the way, is defined as anything that disrupts normal computer usage, whether due to flood, fire or more typically programmer/operator error – but at the core of its operation are the Hot Start and Cold Start standby services that are designed to get the system back on-line once a such disaster has happened. Hot Start Standby is available for all the machines mentioned above and aims to provide an equivalent level of computer resource at an alternative location – either the Salisbury or Leeds site. Clients load their software onto the standby site system and are provided with communications facilities linking up to their own site.
Acceptable risk
Typically, a client will be back on the system within three hours of the break-down. In the event of the complete destruction of the client’s computing centre, the Cold Start service will provide alternative accommodation for the data processing department in fixed or relocatable units, all the networking hardware and software, and all facilities to allow the new computer to be installed as soon as it arrives from the supplier. Sherwood’s disaster recovery services are invoked on a first-come first-served basis, and Newell admits that the chance of a dual claim – where two companies need to use the standby sites at the same time – always exists; with the Salisbury site alone, the probability of a dual claim coming in from a base of 40 clients was calculated at 300 to 1 against; now, with the Leeds site, the odds against a dual claim have risen exponentially to 30,000 to 1 for the same number of clients, and even with the 100 or so customers now on its books, Sherwood reckons it can offer a risk factor small enough to be acceptable to even the most risk-averse of operations. And yet, despite the obvious advantages, Newell concedes that take-up for the services – which come under the Guardian Portfolio tag – has been characterised by a great deal of inertia, even though Sherwood claims disaster recovery costs represent on average only about 2% to 3% of a firm’s total data processing budget. But Newell believes that a new attitude towards disaster recovery is making itself felt, with local and central government starting to send out directives for recovery contingencies, and many facilities management contracts including a clause requiring disaster recovery plans. But what would really set the ball rolling in the UK is legislation similar to that in the US, where directors are personally liable for compensation to interested parties such as shareholders or backers in the event of a system breakdown.
