SYDNEY: IBM Australia has launched a new Virtual Server Recovery (VSR) and Information Protection Service (IPS) offering – a grassroots business continuity solution that has been researched in Australia for local businesses.

“The solution is particularly relevant for SMEs, manufacturing and distribution companies that require a back-up and recovery solution that will recover mission-critical information in the event of a system outage, ensuring that their business stays up and running in all situations,” said IBM Business Continuity and Recovery Services (BCRS) executive Andrew Fry.

Using a shared recovery platform, IBM manages the underlying infrastructure and allocates required resources (CPU, memory and disk) to a client account on the system. Management of the resource is then passed to clients so they can adjust system requirements as needed. This can be managed via remote connectivity or by visiting the IBM recovery centre.

“Under this model, IBM manages all of the client’s hardware and software costs – along with future capacity planning – with the client only paying a monthly fee for the allocated resources,” Fry explained. “Additional capacity is available and is easily allocated.

“In today’s fast-paced business environment, many organisations cannot handle an outage for longer than 24 hours, and some even less than that. Traditionally implementing a solution with a shorter Recovery Time Objective (RTO) has been cost-prohibitive. Together, VSR and IPS can provide faster recovery of server images and their application data, as a pay-as-you-go service.”