RE: Disaster Recover Swap/Leased Space

[Grey, Gretchen]

Amy,
This is Gretchen Grey with the University of Michigan. I am the DR/BC
Officer for administrative systems and (more recently) for central IT at
UM. 

I applaud your research into shared space, as a 3rd party hot site is
expensive and disappointing. The organization that supports
administrative systems has a contract with SunGard, which has been in
effect for the last 3 years. I manage that contract as a part of my
responsibilities. 

My experience with SunGard has not been positive. The amount of time
necessary to adjust the hardware under contract is surprisingly lengthy,
mostly due to multiple iterations because of documentation mistakes and
mismatched configurations. It seems the inventory / scheduling process
they use is manual. There have been promises to automate this since we
initiated our contract, but we have only seen customer support worsen.  

Our adjustments this year doubled the monthly fees, which are not
proportional to the upgrade in equipment. I suspect the fees skyrocketed
because we did not choose to renew the contract for another 5 years, but
only to complete the original 5-year contract. (SunGard pushes that
5-year renewal every year...) 

Scheduling test time is a nightmare - and I am not exaggerating. SunGard
recommends scheduling tests 6 months ahead of time, but I would be
delighted to see this in reality. In fact, we scheduled a test for July
of 2005 last summer - 12 months ahead. SunGard validated this test - in
writing - but did not honor it. I will not elaborate on the resource
management problems this caused...   

I encourage anyone researching options at this point to scrutinize
shared / leased space closely - it just has to be easier, quicker,
cheaper and a whole lot less painful!  

-----Original Message-----
From: owner-bc@merit.edu [mailto:owner-bc@merit.edu] On Behalf Of Amy
Briggs
Sent: Tuesday, August 23, 2005 11:57 AM
To: bc@merit.edu
Subject: Disaster Recover Swap/Leased Space


Is anyone currently planning on (or interested in pursuing)
swapping/leasing space for remote disaster recovery purposes utilizing
the MiLR ring?  

The Legislature is currently investigating different options for a
remote disaster recovery location and has an interest in exploring this
possibility.  While we are not directly connected to the MiLR ring, we
are connected to the Merit Lansing Fiber ring which is, or will be soon,
connected to the MiLR ring.

Please contact me if you have an interest in exploring the possibility
of this with the Legislature.  

I'm also interested in hearing about anyone who is currently planning
on/working on doing something like this.


***********************************
Amy Briggs           CCSA  NG
Michigan Legislative Council
Legislative Internet Technology
100 N. Capitol Avenue                          
PO Box 30014                                        
Lansing, MI  48909-7514
Phone:  517.373.5022
Fax:  517.373.1991                       
Pager:  517.232.0513
abriggs@legislature.mi.gov
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