Satyam readies S'pore as global control center

SINGAPORE--Satyam Computer Services has declared its business continuity and disaster recovery operations in the island-state, the first outside of India, as a tested global control center for its worldwide customers.

Satyam Chairman Ramalinga Raju said at a media briefing Wednesday that the company is "at this stage of wanting to demonstrate to our global customers that we take issues of concern to them very seriously". He was referring to issues around security and business continuity.

Although Satyam has "many plans at various levels" to deal with emergencies--for example, its development centers worldwide are networked to provide disaster recovery support--the Singapore facility "takes things, from the security and business continuity standpoint, to a higher level", said Ramalinga. The differentiator, he noted, is in the level of maturity of Satyam's ability to respond to an emergency.

For example, the global business continuity and disaster recovery center in Singapore mirrors the company's setup in India and is meant to be a backup control center during emergencies. The center also meets global standards of fire-proofing and automation of monitoring processes, noted Virender Aggarwal, senior vice president and director at Satyam.

Ramalinga added: "The differentiators will eventually pay off well, in [terms of] growth and [satisfaction] we may get from our customers."

To support its business continuity and disaster recovery operations, Satyam has an agreement with network provider Orange Business Services to double the bandwidth capacity of the Singapore office. This will enable recovery personnel to take control from the global network control center in Hyderabad. Satyam also has an arrangement with Singapore Airlines and the Singapore government to facilitate the movement of engineers from India to Singapore.

On Monday, Satyam simulated a network outage in India using the scenario of a national disaster. The company flew over 30 engineers involved in mission-critical aspects of the business from Hyderabad to the Singapore center and restored operations within a day.