York-area portfolio managers, reported “flawless” performance for its
Business Continuity Center in Purchase, N.Y.
RFA’s secret? An “advanced array of electrical and communications
redundancies,” including XOsoft’s WANSync global business continuity
platform.
Hedge fund clients using RFA’s full disaster-recovery package, which
includes seating with pre-configured workstations, were able to monitor and
trade their portfolios on Friday, Aug. 15, while much of the Northeastern
U.S. and Canada was still without power. NYSE and Nasdaq trading volume fell
by 50 percent that day.
RFA’s own systems running out of the Internet data center kept an eye on
more than 200 managed client networks. Using automated, continuous
monitoring systems, RFA powered up all client networks over the weekend as
power was restored on a case-by-case basis. With the opening bell of trading
on Monday, not a single RFA-managed network was down.
Michael Curry, RFA’s CTO, says the company was so impressed by XOsoft’s
products that it plans to buy more.
RFA had been using Legato RepliStor, which, Curry says, worked well at data
replication, but took longer to bring servers back up. XOsoft cut that time
in half, a large advantage for RFA, accourding to Curry.
WANSync also provides support for Microsoft Exchange, another advantage over
Legato, says Curry.
Simplicity was also a benefit of XOsoft, with just a single sheet of
directions that could be turned over to a senior engineer. RFA plans to try WANSync SQL next, so the company will have a live SQL
server “ready and waiting.”
WANSync is designed to synchronize entire critical information servers to remote replicas,
and keeps them fresh and available with continuous, real-time replication, according to
XOsoft.
“WANSync products operate transparently and completely eliminate the need
for shutting down or rebooting application or database servers during
installation, maintenance, and daily operations,” says Gil Rapaport, XOsoft’s
marketing vice president.
XOsoft claims its Rewind technology, embedded in all XOsoft products, “is
the only business continuity software solution that allows enterprises to
quickly and easily undo application and database corruptions by rewinding
affected data resources to their latest consistent state before corruptions
took place.” The company also offers Data Rewinder, a server-based point
solution for data corruptions.
Back to Enterprise Storage Forum.