Escaping IT Disruptions
28 Jan 2008
EDS' Global Services Network Keeps Clients Calm, Cool and Connected
Pilots have ejection seats and sailors have life rafts, but what does a major governmental or business entity reach for when its information technology (IT) system is heading for a crash?
For EDS clients, the Global Services Network (GSN) serves as an escape hatch in times of crisis, whether the danger is a natural disaster or a man-made mess.
The GSN links more than 500 facilities worldwide, including all 16 EDS Service Management Centers (SMCs), all EDS call centers, solution centers and administration centers. This one-of-a-kind, Multi-Protocol Layer Switching (MPLS) network enables EDS and its clients to quickly and easily transfer data around the world in a secure environment.
As the only IT services provider equipped with this capability, EDS uses the GSN as a delivery channel to move a wide array of services to its clients. However, the private network may also be used to transfer work from one location to any other connected EDS facility. The 50-node network is spread across 19 countries. So, when trouble strikes in one place, the GSN can quickly route IT operations and critical data elsewhere to avoid the threat. That means the GSN preserves business continuity and reduces the risk and severity of systems outages for both EDS and its clients.
“It was designed with four nines in mind. That's an ability to stay up 99.99 percent of the time,” said Don Cleavinger, EDS Director of Global Network Engineering.
EDS' Global Services Network is Ready for a Rescue
From floods and fires to earthquakes and hurricanes, the GSN can be a lifesaver for chief information officers.
“Let's say you have a big call center in India,” Cleavinger explained. “Let's say a typhoon hits India. We can move that call center work to Sydney, Nova Scotia, for our clients.”
In October 2007, EDS facilities in Los Angeles, Calif., were on standby to receive important duties and data through the GSN when wildfires scorched hundreds of square miles in nearby San Diego County. EDS supports IT and communications operations for the San Diego County government.
“When the fires were out of control, there was potential that a communications facility was in the path of a fire,” Cleavinger said. “If that had burned up, the county's ability to communicate would have been drastically reduced.”
Fortunately, the San Diego facility was saved and the full EDS contingency plan wasn't needed, though the GSN remained at the ready and EDS lent assistance in other ways.
“We stood up a bunch of Web servers overnight for the county's emergency response so that people whose homes had burned could go to the county for assistance,” Cleavinger said, adding that EDS performed a similar service for federal authorities following hurricanes Katrina and Rita along the Gulf Coast of the United States in 2005.
Earthquakes put the GSN to the test in December 2006, severing critical undersea data cables in the Luzon Strait between Hong Kong and Taiwan. According to news accounts, the initial 6.7-magnitude quake was followed by a 7.1-magnitude aftershock, snapping seven submarine cables and crippling communications between Taiwan and China, Japan, Korea, the United States and other parts of Southeast Asia.
But for EDS clients, the tremors barely caused a ripple in their IT operations. The GSN's multi-level security and failover redundancy kept those clients online and in communication. Though EDS call centers in the region were supporting about 800 calls at the exact time the undersea cables were cut, all but eight calls were instantaneously rerouted by the GSN with no disruptions. The eight calls that were terminated could not be linked directly to the earthquakes and may have been calls coming to their natural conclusions at the time the quakes struck.
Supporting EDS' Zero Outage Initiative
The GSN supports the broader EDS Zero Outage initiative designed to identify and eliminate potential outages throughout the network business. As of summer 2007, only eight months after launching the project, client Severity One outages were reduced by 73% and Severity Two outages were reduced by 36% overall.
A Severity One outage is defined as an incident causing a complete interruption or extreme degradation of service delivery to the affected client, environment or business operation. Those affected cannot operate in an automated fashion until service delivery is restored. A Severity Two outage is defined as an incident causing a significant interruption or degradation of service delivery to the affected client, environment or business operation. There is an automated contingency plan that allows those affected to achieve partial functionality during the event.
Natural disasters aside, the GSN may also be used to protect EDS clients from disruptions such as power outages, political unrest and human error – any situation that poses a threat to a client's ability to operate in a given location. The network can also provide added flexibility to enterprises undergoing transformation by way of a merger, divestiture or other potentially disruptive organizational change.