Plasmon PLC is working with IBM to provide a disaster recovery solution that moves companies beyond a reliance on backup and gives customers trusted, timely and cost-effective recovery of critical data. Plasmon’s UDO Archive Appliance is being combined with IBM’s Hot Site Recovery Service to allow IBM FileNet P8 customers to leverage, simultaneously, the unique strengths of archival disk and optical media in a single system. This combination allows customers to address data accessibility, disaster recovery and other archive requirements in a way that traditional storage products cannot.

With industry statistics estimating the cost of downtime averaging between $85,000 and $90,000 an hour, disaster recovery and business continuity continue to be business imperatives. For IBM FileNet P8 customers that have demanding recovery time objectives, the enhanced Hot Site Recovery service that includes Plasmon’s Archive Appliance now provides a solution to meet this objective in a faster, more cost-effective manner.

Utilizing Plasmon’s Archive Appliance, P8 customers write data to Archival RAID storage allowing for quick information access during everyday use. As part of this process, archived data is also automatically copied to removable and highly durable UDO (Ultra Density Optical) disks for long-term storage by the Archive Appliance.

As part of IBM’s enhanced Hot Site Recovery solution these optical disks, which can provide over 100 years of longevity, are then shipped to an offsite location providing further security and recoverability options. If a disaster or crisis occurs, the optical disks can be transferred to the customers’ IBM Hot Site locations along with backup copies of the IBM FileNet P8 databases for restoration. Unlike backup data, which must be laboriously transferred back onto disk to be accessible online, the archived data on UDO is available for online access as soon as it has been placed within a standby Archive Appliance at the IBM Hot Site. This solution allows IBM customers to move beyond reliance on time-consuming tape-based recovery or resorting to expensive redundant storage.

"Working with IBM and communicating the value of the Archive Appliance to customers looking for faster, more cost-effective recovery options will help drive a further understanding of the importance of archiving data on multiple types of media to achieve a true archive that is protected for the life of the data but still easily accessible," said Steven Murphy, CEO, Plasmon. "Forging relationships with market leaders like IBM is key to our strategy of helping companies address their archiving and backup challenges in a more simplified manner."