James Galt ‘At a Glance’
- Produces and sells quality toys
- Workplace Recovery via SunGard’s Stockport Recovery Centre
- Technology Recovery for AS/400
James Galt produces and sells quality toys, which meet the needs of all stages of child development from 0-10 years. Based in Cheadle, Cheshire, the company has been in business for 150 years. During that time James Galt has developed products that are designed to be fun and which encourage learning through play. Traditionally the company is associated with art, craft and activity products.
Rigorous quality control is applied at all stages of development, production and distribution of James Galt toys (all products comply with or exceed current toy safety regulations (primarily BS EN71 and HD271/BS EN50088) and all carry the CE mark and the BS5665 Lion Mark). And this attitude extends itself into the business continuity arena, with James Galt also being committed to ensuring the continuation of its business should interruption affect their critical systems.
To this effect, James Galt has put in place a comprehensive business continuity plan (BCP) comprising Workplace Recovery and Technology Recovery for AS/400 and Communications systems with SunGard Availability Services (previously Guardian iT and Safetynet). This was tested for real one Sunday in August 2003, when James Galt’s premises were destroyed in a suspected arson attack.
Disaster strikes
The fire took hold on Saturday, 9 August, at around 10pm. Subsequent investigation revealed that the cause of the blaze was likely to have been a firework, which was thrown into the building through a window on the second floor.
By Sunday morning, despite the best efforts of the emergency services, the second floor had collapsed. Much of the office equipment had been destroyed as a direct result of the fire itself – either as the building caved in, or from smoke damage – but the secondary effect of water damage as the fire was quenched also played its part.
Initial steps on the road to recovery
Mark Taylor, IT manager for James Galt, placed SunGard on alert at midday, and in the meantime set about recovering what could be from the building. The salvage operation was managed via Taylor’s laptop and mobile phone. He was able to contact various members of staff, who arrived quickly at the site. At one stage, the humidity was such that Mark’s mobile phone was unable to cope. However, contingency planning meant he could access another to manage the co-ordination process and clear the building of useful equipment and vital paper records.
Fortunately, the communications room had remained almost intact and the Fire Services had covered the main Intel server to protect it from water damage. However, James Galt’s AS/400 server had not been so fortunate due to being kept in a separate room and had been soaked during the course of the night.
Nonetheless, the salvage team rescued the servers via a broken window, and rolled them across cobbled pavements to safety. Whilst not the manufacturers’ recommended treatment for such machines, it proved effective in removing them to safety.
Invocation!
Taylor stepped up his alert to full invocation at 1.30pm, and whilst the James Galt team initially remained at their own site, SunGard’s operations team lost no time in preparing the Stockport Recovery Centre for the client’s due arrival.
As may be expected James Galt’s BCP allows for recovery to SunGard servers from backup tapes. However, the customer decided to attempt to restore from their salvaged Intel and AS/400 servers. To this end, the SunGard systems ran as a parallel processing mechanism, to provide failover for the client’s servers.
The Intel system houses James Galt’s Windows NT operating system, whilst the AS/400 runs the accounting system, which uses GEAC System 21 software. The parallel processing mechanism provided the necessary ‘safety net’, in case of any problems.
Amazingly, considering what the Intel and AS/400 servers had been through, they were rebooted immediately by Taylor’s team: “The thought ‘like a phoenix from the ashes’ sprang to mind,” Taylor observed. A full system save was completed, but the SunGard parallel processors were kept running as a prudent measure.
SunGard worked through the night to ensure the James Galt team would be operational again the following morning, enabling Taylor and his team to get some much-needed sleep.
Keeping people and information connected
Data recovery was only one half of James Galt’s BCP, contingency plans for an alternative office environment were the other. Ensuring that people and information remain connected at all times is vital to any information availability plan, as one element without the other is useless in terms of conducting business.
To that end, 25 staff relocated to a Workplace Recovery suite at the Stockport Recovery Centre on Monday morning. SunGard re-created James Galt’s standard PC user interface, and rolled this out to 25 positions, enabling all staff to access their everyday applications, ‘as normal’.
In addition, communications to James Galt’s customer warehouse, some twenty miles away in Nelson, were re-established using routers that were shipped out to the warehouse site that day.
SunGard provided an ISDN2 line to enable Internet access and emails to be sent and received and James Galt’s Internet Service Provider supplied a backup router.
As part of SunGard’s recent £multi-million Workplace Recovery standardisation and upgrade project to resolve voice and data recovery issues in tandem, a digital telephony system had been installed. This allowed James Galt’s employees to receive calls via an automatic redirection system, regardless of where they were in the building, without the need for a receptionist.
By Monday evening, James Galt was once again fully operational. Staff could access critical applications, customer data and accounting information as well as receive calls from worried customers. And as far callers were concerned, there was no change in the service provided.
Relocation, relocation
Once the initial recovery procedures had been followed, and the James Galt team had settled into their temporary new home, it was time to think about planning for the future.
Its office was beyond repair, so James Galt needed to find new premises, and equip them virtually from scratch using money claimed on insurance. This required a vast amount of planning, which resulted in James Galt remaining at Stockport until 9 November– some 13 weeks later.
In conclusion
Surveys constantly reveal fire to be one of the greatest concerns for BC managers and the ‘disaster’ most fear having to deal with. But the experience of James Galt demonstrated that implementing and committing to a BCP enables organisations to respond effectively and efficiently when the worst occurs. The effects of the fire may have been devastating for their old office, but thanks to BC, the same could not be said for James Galt’s business.
Note: James Galt’s invocation experience was recognised when the company was one of only four included in the 2004 Business Continuity Awards’ ‘Most Effective Recovery of the Year’ category shortlist.