The system is expected to be fully integrated by the end of 2008 and will ensure LSE can continue with its day-to-day operations in the event of any disruptions, either man-made or natural.
SunGard will provide LSE with space in two of its resilient data centres; its London Technology Centre in west London and TC2 in London’s Docklands. LSE will be utilising SunGard’s Electronic Vaulting to back-up and recover all of its critical systems and data held on 97 servers, totalling over 40 terabytes of data.
The company will also provide LSE with its fully managed E-mail Availability Service (EAS), ensuring archiving capability for the School’s e-mail system.
Previously, LSE had been running two on-site data centres. The university is located in central London, near the Royal Courts of Justice, and therefore is at risk from terrorist attacks. One data centre was nearing capacity so LSE decided to outsource its information availability, data back-up and recovery.
Adrian Ellison, assistant director in IT Services at LSE, said: “As with most organisations, our data is very much our crown jewels so it was imperative that we found the right partner to help protect and help ensure 24/7 availability of our critical systems. Having been out to tender, the decision to work with SunGard to improve our resilience was a fairly simple one; we believe SunGard had the best infrastructure and technological solutions, and we were very impressed by its people and support processes.”
Ellison added that having its data stored in two different areas of London added to the appeal of the SunGard bid. “The events of 7/7 brought home to us the importance of having alternative back-up sites away from our campus in central London. We are now very much leading the way amongst our peers by adopting an outsourced and multi- location approach to data recovery and e-mail availability. Using SunGard’s TC2 and LTC centres, we have an extremely high level of resilience without needing to worry about power supply and air cooling which were becoming major and expensive concerns,” he said.
SunGard is also helping LSE to better understand its data, which is growing by 40% each year. Over 70% of its data had not been accessed in six months. SunGard used this information to enable LSE to better prioritise its recovery strategies and to improve the efficiency of data storage and back-up.
