Disaster Recovery

In 2001, CPR entered into a partnership with SunGard*. CPR wanted to provide a way to help their members securely manage their data for a very low expense. SunGard offers CPR members data hosting services and 24 X 7 monitoring. SunGard takes care of managing the server hardware so members are assured that their data is always running on the latest technology with advanced processors, memory and data storage for hardware. They also take care of the operating system and database management software applying new patches when they come out and fully test all patches before deploying them to the servers. SunGard also performs nightly back-ups as well as any data restoration that may be required.

Disaster Recovery is a second area of expertise and service SunGard supplies CPR members. How good are your disaster recovery plans?

CCCS of New Orleans’ data was housed at SunGard and with a little help from CPR to get their branches’ alternative data connections to SunGard we had offices back up a running two days after the full wrath of Katrina entered New Orleans.

* About SunGard

SunGard is an Information Technology infrastructure and managed Services Company that provides a comprehensive range of secure, reliable, enterprise-level IT operations. These inclusive enterprise services are centrally delivered through automated systems to our nationwide data centers or customer locations. SunGard’s solutions help maintain and improve all levels of enterprise service and support while extending IT departments’ in-house capabilities. SunGard customers rely on the company’s expertise for hosting, security, monitoring, OS and database administration, and storage and tape back up requirements. Customers benefit from scalable, cost controlled, high-quality IT services and infrastructure all from one source. For Additional information on SunGard and the scalable solutions, visit: www.sungard.com.

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Server Administration

IT departments face an increasingly complex set of challenges - alignment of business priorities and IT systems, cost containment through process automation and service portfolio optimization, adjustment of IT resources to business demand, and more stringent SLAs. While most organizations possess the basic physical infrastructure to host their computing resources, many lack the human and process assets to both support all of their around-the-clock SLAs and meet their long-term business-alignment application strategies. SunGard provides a robust solution to this by offering a range of monitoring, administration, backup, and security services to help you get the most from your budget and staff. These services can help you meet your constituents’ business goals by freeing you to focus on your development strategy, instead of administering hardware and software systems.

Provisioning

SunGard has established relationships with industry-leading hardware and software vendors, ensuring timely, accurate deployments. Certified administrators are experts at installing operating systems and application software and service packs. Our installations are standardized and repeatable to ensure consistent and efficient operation within all SunGard data centers. Each SunGard standard configuration is optimized for security, reliability and performance. Plus, we make sure that the latest upgrades and security patches are included from Day One.

Proactive Monitoring

SunGard monitors all critical components of the customer’s software environment to ensure correct and efficient operation 7 days a week, 24 hours a day, 365 days a year. These monitors include:

• Hardware (failure or performance degradation)
• Connectivity
• Disk Space
• Memory Utilization
• Processor Utilization
• Performance Counters
• Services and Processes

Maintenance

Ongoing maintenance is vital to running secure, available and scalable applications. SunGard performs regular backup of systems and application files, management of the domain, proactive patching and hardening, and comprehensive troubleshooting of specific application and server faults.

Server Administration Portfolio

• Monitoring
• Security/Firewall
• Tape Backup
• System Administration
• Database Administration
• Storage
• Load Balancing
• Clustering

ServiceCenter - Tape Backup & Restore Services!

Tape Backup Services
Veritas NetBackup is used to backup operating systems and application data to DLT tape cartridges, which reside in STK 9710 and Adic Scalar, robotic tape libraries. Each application that is backed up has its own user-specified scheduling and procedural requirements. Veritas database extension agents are used to achieve a “hot” backup of databases such as Oracle and MS-SQL Server, without interrupting client access to the application.

In order to provide the foundation for data recovery, weekly full image backups are performed on application data and operating systems. Our weekly backups are retained onsite for two weeks and then shipped offsite for two weeks. These backups are supplemented with the daily incremental backups which are kept onsite for two weeks. The amount of data transferred for backups is based on the amount of data being stored on disk and how often it changes. Since SunGard performs incremental backups every night, if you change all of your files every day, then each one of the incremental backups will be a full backup to tape every night. If any file remains inactive on the server (i.e. does not change every day), then it will only be backed up during the full backup cycle on Sundays. All files that change everyday (i.e. active files) will be backed up every day as well as during our full backup cycle on Sundays. Monthly backups are shipped offsite and retained for 90 days; quarterly backups are shipped offsite and retained for one calendar year.

Restoration Services
In the event of data corruption or other problems requiring data recovery, the parameters for data recovery are defined by your application engineers and SunGard’s evaluation of how the data corrupted and when the corruption manifested itself. Based upon that evaluation, the most appropriate recovery scenario is employed. For non-critical restores, a SunGard technician will begin the restoration process within three hours provided the backup media is on-site. For service-affecting situations, restoration will begin within 30 minutes, provided the backup media is on-site.

Note: All seven of SunGard’s Data Centers have extensive emergency protection systems to ensure that not only the servers but the data is protected 24/7, 365 days a year. The tapes are kept in metal cabinets that are located in an area where fire suppression is managed at a very high level. The tapes are stored in a different area from the systems in a room that is protected by Halon. Halon gas is used to force the oxygen out of the air and thus extinguish any fire. This also prevents damage to the tapes that would occur if water were used. They also have extensive systems measuring the air quality, moisture, and temperature of these rooms. The following table lists the building specifications they have listed on their web site. CPR’s servers are in the Dallas facility.