The timing of this announcement is pertinent in the light of recent government regulations around data backup and recovery for financial institutions. Although the regs do not mandate the distance between remote sites, U.S. federal agencies are requiring "firms that play significant roles in critical financial markets" to recover clearing and settlement activities as soon as possible. They must recover operations "within the business day on which a disruption occurs with the overall goal of achieving recovery and resumption within two hours after an event." Any entity that fits the description of a "core clearing and settlement organization" must meet these standards by the end of 2004 (see Feds Set DR Regulations).
The Feds also require that a backup facility be fully staffed in the event of a disaster, which could be a financial challenge for some organizations. Sprints offering means that companies can backup to a remote location where they already have resources, taking out the cost involved in building new data centers for disaster recovery, says Frank Barbetta, analyst with Probe Research Inc..
Analysts estimate there are at least a hundred financial organizations in the U.S. that will need to upgrade their networks to be in line with the new regulations. And storage-over-IP contracts are beginning crop up. Cisco recently won a deal with Euronext LIFFE, a financial futures exchange in Europe (see Cisco Touts Storage-Over-IP Project).
Jo Maitland, Senior Editor, Boardwatch
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