SunGard Availability Services has announced the expansion of its Livingston Workplace Recovery Centre, increasing the volume of workplace recovery space for organisations within Scotland.

The Livingston Workplace Recovery Centre offers both shared and dedicated space to which organisations can re-locate staff in the event of a disruption to their business. Existing customers include Edinburgh based investment management firm, Baillie Gifford, and energy giant, Centrica.

Commenting on the expansion, Keith Tilley, managing director UK and executive vice-president Europe for SunGard Availability Services, said, “As demand for quality workplace recovery space continues to grow and organisations look to improve their recovery time objectives, it is crucial they have the facilities in place to support current and future availability needs. Extended periods of downtime can have a huge impact on both an organisation’s reputation and its bottom line, so taking a ‘prevention is better than cure’ approach to business continuity is essential. Interestingly, although home-working during a business disruption has increasingly been incorporated into many organisations business continuity plans over the last few years, in the last year we’ve actually seen a number of organisations increase their investments in our services as they realise the value of being able to continue to work in a team environment during a disruption.”

Richard McGrail, head of Information Systems, Baillie Gifford, commented: “Having a robust, reliable, business continuity strategy in place is key to our ability to provide the highest levels of service to our clients even in very difficult circumstances. At Baillie Gifford, we’ve recognised the importance of business continuity for over 15 years and as threats and risks to our business have evolved over this period, we’ve adapted and improved our strategy accordingly."

The increased space has been made available to customers via investment in both additional space and by reconfiguring existing areas to maximise their potential, including the transformation of four computer equipment room environments into a significantly larger single data centre. Technology upgrades including more energy efficient desktop PCs and investment in IP phones also provide customers with the advanced facilities they need to work from in the event of a business disruption. Livingston offers double the available workplace positions it had when it originally opened, with a higher percentage of dedicated than shared space now available as organisations increasingly demand the extra assurance that having sole access provides.

In addition to the extra workplace space available, the 70% increase in data centre space helps enables SunGard to meet continued market demand for managed services by Scotland’s businesses. “As organisations set increasingly ambitious recovery point as well as time objectives, having a secure and resilient infrastructure in place to support current and future availability needs is crucial. There is little point recovering all your people to one place if they cannot then access the data and systems they need to work effectively,” said Tilley.

Commenting on the need for robust planning, Iain MacMillan, director of CBI Scotland, said, “At an uncertain time for the economy, the last thing a business needs is to be out of operation for hours, days or even weeks because of a lack of preparedness. We always encourage our members to risk assess their businesses and plan for any eventuality. Planning for what happens to your staff and your IT in the event of a disruption is certainly a key part of this. Whether it’s fire, flood or something far more mundane, business disruption is a constant threat and something the best businesses have plans to cope with.”

SunGard’s Livingston and Dundee centres form a part of the company’s 1.2m sq ft of UK real-estate. All 20 UK locations are connected via SunGard’s National Network, hubbed from two fully-resilient data centres.

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