Net Magic implements DR solution for BPO firm

Net Magic implements DR solution for BPO firmWhile disasters can cripple any business, they are even more dangerous for India’s sunrise ITeS sector. ITeS firms have to operate on a 24x7 basis without downtime. Srikanth R P writes about Ugam Solutions, which has joined the increasing number of BPO organisations to implement a comprehensive disaster recovery plan

Sharad Sanghi

Disaster recovery solutions have become part and parcel of any system design, especially after the 9/11 attacks that ensured that awareness of the need for disaster recovery reached new highs. Business process outsourcing (BPO) firms in particular have been more aggressive in adopting disaster recovery solutions as any downtime can bring down not only precious revenues but also result in loss of face. Most often, disaster recovery requirements are driven from the client’s side as many BPO clients have now made it mandatory for their service providers to have disaster recovery sites or mirror sites. In line with global trends, Ugam Solutions, a premier BPO firm in Mumbai was looking for a redundant back-up site for servicing its US-based customers. Ugam needed a disaster recovery solution for an online application hosted in a US data centre.

The firm’s main requirement was to not only ensure a back-up, but to also make sure that there was not more than two hours delay in running the application. After rigorous evaluation based on a host of parameters, Ugam zeroed in on Mumbai-based NetMagic Solutions. Detailed discussions were then held with the client to understand the client’s infrastructure and the vulnerabilities of the current system.

NetMagic proposed creating a parallel secondary system environment in India. While the usual way would have been to go in for proprietary third-party software to conduct data replication and synchronisation, in this case NetMagic decided to implement the solution using open standard replication protocols keeping the client’s budget in mind. NetMagic even customised the replication protocols to ensure validity and security of data.

Today, the replication is configured in an asynchronous replication mode since synchronous replication over the vast distance between the primary and secondary sites would inhibit the performance of the application server. This synchronisation ensures replication of user data as well as system databases is done multiple times a day. In the event of a disaster, certain elements of the system environment are switched over instantaneously, while others are switched over within the stipulated time frame of two hours.

Disaster recovery at Ugam

To ensure safe synchronisation between the primary and secondary e-mail servers, NetMagic has written an in-house, proprietary script to replicate the e-mail stored. These precautions ensure that in the event of a disaster, business can go on unhindered. In case downtime is witnessed on the primary mail server in the US, an immediate manual switchover is expedited from the primary site to the secondary site. Besides using open standard replication protocols, NetMagic has innovated in another way by setting up the back-up server in India to function as a global load balancing solution. For instance, if the load on the primary server in the US reaches critical levels then the load is shifted to the server based in India.

srikanth@expresscomputeronline.com