Challenge:

• A US state’s internal IT support services needed to find a single disaster recovery provider with technology infrastructure and technical expertise to deliver a program that would enable the recovery of multiple hardware platforms.
• Internal expertise in these technologies was limited due to both the age of the equipment and limited staff availability.
• System platforms included multiple IBM mainframes utilizing Virtual Tape Systems with a complex SAN environment to support tape-based recovery. The mainframes needed to be recovered in a synchronized manner that would make them available to communicate to a robust virtualized Intel environment. These platforms also needed to be connected back to ITS using a mix of supported communications systems and legacy firewall & switching technologies.

Solution:

• Due to the complexity of the client’s recovery requirements, Converge conducted a combination of both onsite meetings and standard weekly pre-test calls, which began weeks out from the customer’s DR tests.
• Based on the onsite meetings, we were able to identify additional critical computing resources that were missing in their original RFP, providing a pathway to add these missing resources to our DR services schedule.

Results:

• The initial DR test with Converge was a complete success; the client noted that they had not been successful in completing a DR test with any of their previous DR providers.
• The customer felt confident that if they experienced a true disaster, Converge would be able to fully recover their systems environment.