E-ternity Assists St. Paul Guarantee in Achieving Compliancy with Disaster Recovery Requirements
Mississauga, Ontario- September 19, 2005
E-ternity Business Continuity Consultants Inc., a Mississauga, Ontario based company that provides comprehensive Business Continuity Solutions to customers in Ontario, today announced that St. Paul Guarantee Insurance Company selected E-ternity to assist them with their overall Business Continuity requirements. St. Paul Guarantee is a Canadian surety bond and specialty insurance provider, and a member of The St. Paul Travelers Companies, Inc.
Back in April of this year, St. Paul Guarantee faced a daunting task: implement a complete disaster recovery solution by September 1, 2005. A recent internal audit recommended certain modifications be made to the organization’s current recovery process, and the objectives were set to address these requirements as soon as possible. St. Paul Guarantee has major offices in Toronto, Vancouver, and Montreal, and the company wanted to ensure continuity of their business operations if any of these locations were compromised. “Our internal auditors felt that our disaster recovery protocol required attention in order for us to continue to deliver the proper service levels to our valued customers,” stated Tom Ioannou, Vice President of Information Systems for St. Paul Guarantee. St. Paul Guarantee explored a number of different options, from outsourcing the entire project to bringing it completely in-house. After meeting with E-ternity, they concluded that with E-ternity’s assistance, the best option was to manage the infrastructure themselves. “It was clear after our first meetings with St. Paul Guarantee that their IT team had the expertise to manage this environment in-house,” said Guy Netaneli, E-ternity’s Manager of Data Integrity Services. After an in-depth review of the different options, St. Paul Guarantee felt the E-ternity solution achieved all of the objectives set forth at the beginning of the project while delivering the best overall value at the same time.
E-ternity worked closely with St. Paul Guarantee to come up with an end to end high-availability solution. This solution comprised of EMC’s industry-leading Clariion Storage Area Network solution and IBM’s revolutionary BladeCenter blade server technology. These platforms were complemented by some of the most prominent software solutions in IT today including VMware’s virtualization software, EMC/Legato’s RepliStor Data Replication software, and Asigra’s Remote Backup software. Finally, the locations were all linked together via a Wide Area Network Solution from TELUS.
“To St. Paul Guarantee’s credit, they saw the bigger picture,” began Michael Aaron, Managing Director of Services for E-ternity. “While some organizations tend to plug small hole after small hole in hopes of addressing a larger problem, St. Paul Guarantee had the foresight to approach this situation with the intention of achieving their business continuity goals with an enterprise-wide approach.”
Rob Girard, Team Leader & National Network Coordinator for St. Paul Guarantee appreciated the efficiency with which the E-ternity team operated. “We needed a solution and we needed one quickly in order to achieve the aggressive deadlines we had set for ourselves.” said Girard. “E-ternity sat down with us over several brainstorming sessions and together we came up with a solution that met our needs, leveraged our existing skill sets, and could be managed in-house. In fact, E-ternity’s turnaround time was so impressive that they were presenting a final solution before their competitors had even gotten over the fact that we were not interested in a ‘managed solution.’”
St. Paul Guarantee was also impressed with E-ternity’s Professional Services team. “We’d used consultants sparingly in the past, and with mixed results,” reflected Girard. “E-ternity’s team has been incredible. Their knowledge and expertise is first rate. They bring true professionalism to their work.”
About St. Paul Guarantee Insurance Company
St. Paul Guarantee Insurance Company is a Canadian surety bond and specialty insurance provider, and a member of The St. Paul Travelers Companies, Inc. The company was created through the purchase of London Guarantee Insurance Company, and officially launched on January 1, 2003. In addition, the operations of Northern Indemnity, Inc. have been integrated into St. Paul Guarantee, facilitating our ability to offer surety products both domestically and around the globe. More information about St. Paul Guarantee Insurance Company can be found at www.stpaulguarantee.com.
About E-ternity
E-ternity Business Continuity Consultants Inc. is a Mississauga, Ontario based organization focused on providing Business Continuity Services, Data Integrity Solutions, and Voice Continuity Services to customers in Ontario. E-ternity is laser-focused on designing and implementing solutions that will allow customers to achieve a perpetual state where their business will never experience downtime again. The organization prides itself as a single-source provider that brings customers best of breed technologies and methodologies and deploys them in a cohesive, integrated fashion. E-ternity helps customers find the perfect intersection between their acceptable risk and their available budget. More information about E-ternity can be found at www.e-ternity.ca.