Starsupply Renewables Protected With Plan B

Part of the SCB Group, Starsupply Renewables, provider of global brokerage services, has chosen Plan B to provide a fully managed, virtualisation-based, business continuity and recovery service that will enable its staff to access an exact replica of their server systems on a newly invoked recovery network. The company now has a quick and simple way of recovering their systems if any type of hardware or software disaster occurs.

Another key factor in Starsupply Renewables choosing the Plan DR service is that it can be invoked without using outsourced IT support, so it will not present Starsupply Renewables with any additional IT overheads. The Plan B service replaces Starsupply Renewables’ data back-up recovery method, as they realised that just having backups wouldn’t help the business continue – in the event of an incident.

To set this up, Plan B’s intelligent snapshotting appliance was plugged into Starsupply Renewables’ network, where it automatically takes copies of the IT systems – without any need for further IT staff assistance or disruption. The server image copies are then sent securely to a Plan B data centre, where physical to virtual conversion and configuration technology ensures that they run on their virtualised servers.

The newly created system images (rescue images) are automatically tested by Plan B to guarantee that, in the event of a system outage, they will boot up without trouble and the critical operational systems will be quickly available for Starsupply Renewables’ staff.

The Plan B appliance also keeps past snapshots of Starsupply Renewables’ system – as a local backup. This means that a very fast, file level recovery, can also be provided – in the event of local data corruption or loss.

Stefan Rask at Starsupply Renewables said: "The Plan B team proved to be true professionals and immediately offered knowledgeable feedback to our questions and concerns. While the installation was quick and easy, there are always issues that come up along the way, for example, DNS management, and we found that Plan B provided exactly the guidance and help we needed."

Rask added: "Even our IT consultant was impressed. When we ran a test of the disaster invocation, Plan B had our main server up and running in 6 minutes flat. At first, he couldn’t believe it, but our server was online and working – faster than making a cup of tea."