March 22, 2004 — (WEB HOST INDUSTRY REVIEW) — AT&T announced the signing of a multi-year managed services agreement with the Chicago Tribune newspaper last week. Under the deal, AT&T (att.com) says it will provide the newspaper with business continuity and disaster recovery solution that will provide increased security, reliability, efficiency and a lower total cost of ownership.
The solution, which integrates a number of AT&T’s managed services such as hosting, storage and security, is designed to protect enterprises against physical threats and disasters in addition to “logical threats,” such as cyberattacks, says Joe Weinman, director of application networking for AT&T Business. Its central component is AT&T’s Ultravailable Computing, a fully managed service that deploys private, high-speed fiber optic networks that connect an enterprise’s primary operations with a remotely located “mirror” site.
The Ultravailable network deployed for the Chicago Tribune connects two of the publisher’s own data center facilities located approximately 10 km apart. It is set up in an “active-active” configuration, with both the primary and remote back-up sites running synchronously, allowing AT&T to quickly restore operations in the event of a disaster. This posture, AT&T says, offers advantages over “active-passive” configurations that rely on standby servers, which come online only after a delay. The Ultravailable network also possesses the flexibility to host additional business and storage applications, adds Eric Shepcaro, vice president of application networking at ATT Business.
According to AT&T, the solution was implemented in partnership with Sun Microsystems (sun.com) and Nortel Networks (nortelnetworks.com). Sun upgraded the Chicago Tribune’s IT infrastructure with the deployment of two Sun Fire 15k servers running Sun Cluster 3.1 software and Sun’s Solaris 9 operating system. The Ultravailable network connecting the two sites employs Sun and Nortel technology, leveraging Sun’s cluster software and Nortel’s DWDM-based fiber optic technology. DWDM (dense wave division multiplexing) is a technology that allows for the enhanced transmission of data over optical networks. The main benefit of DWDM, according to Shepcaro, is its ability to deliver unprecedented bandwidth and scalability in addition to the lowest possible latency. Shepcaro says DWDM has really begun to catch on and AT&T has been leading the way in bringing it to market as a managed service.
“The integrated AT&T Ultravailable Computing business continuity solution was a perfect fit for the Tribune Publishing Group because of the high levels of reliability and flexibility it offers,” Pat Traynor, vice president of networking integration at AT&T, said in a release. “As a leader in network integration, we have formed alliances with best-in-class providers, including Sun and Nortel Networks, to leverage their specialist knowledge making it easy for customers to get a one-stop solution for their business continuity and complex networking needs.”
AT&T’s latest contract win comes as companies are focusing increased attention and resources on business continuity and disaster recovery solutions in the wake of last August’s blackout on the eastern seaboard, the several bouts of extreme weather that hit in 2003 and the continued concerns over terrorism.
“We are finding that many customers still don’t have end-to-end business continuity and recovery plans, but we are seeing more focus in terms of dollars shifting to actually deploying those solutions,” says Weinman. He also noted that the media and entertainment industry is an emerging vertical for the business continuity space that to this point has seen mostly customers from the financial service industry. “The publishing, media and entertainment space are really beginning to grasp these types of capabilities for their critical business needs,” he says.
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