To provide more than 280 Disaster Recovery Positions
LONDON - SchlumbergerSema, a business segment of Schlumberger Limited, today announced that Computershare Investor Services PLC, the world's largest share registry and a leading provider of financial market services and technology to the global securities industry, has extended its DeXa.Ensure business continuity agreement with SchlumbergerSema. Under the contract SchlumbergerSema will provide 286 disaster recovery positions.
Heightened awareness of potential disasters has increased the priority for business continuity planning and while catastrophic events are obviously disruptive, for many companies a disaster could be something as innocuous as a burst water main or a severed communications link. Computershare manages more than 68 million shareholder accounts for over 7,500 corporations around the world, managing the full range of transactions and services for thousands of clients worldwide. For Computershare its business systems are mission critical and any communication or system failure is simply not an option.
Computershare became a customer of SchlumbergerSema in July 1999 and the original agreement was for the provision of a 250 square foot computer room and 15 positions for IT support in the SchlumbergerSema Bristol business recovery center. Now Computershare has decided to extend that contract to include 286 disaster recovery positions for core staff. Unlike some business continuity providers, SchlumbergerSema is providing these positions on a share ratio, guaranteeing Computershare access to a minimum number of business continuity positions in the event of a disaster.
"We made our original decision to secure a large computer room for mirrored data back-up because, as we relied more and more heavily on IT systems to run our business, we realized the effect any kind of downtime would have," explained Dave Hudd, general manager of Computershare. "However, our business cannot function without people so it is imperative for us to be able to offer alternative office space in case the regular office space becomes unusable for some reason. We decided to extend the relationship with SchlumbergerSema because we knew and trusted them, and they outstripped their competitors in terms of providing the capacity for both data back-up and the number of disaster recovery seats we needed."
"The relationship between Computershare and SchlumbergerSema has proven to be a successful one," said John Kersley, vice president of business continuity at SchlumbergerSema. "Although it has never needed to invoke our service, the support staff have 24/7 access to the facility and frequently test the network and undergo maintenance activity. We are delighted to see the contract being extended and hope that the relationship continues to prosper in the future."
Through its DeXa.Ensure offering, SchlumbergerSema is a premier provider of contingency planning, business continuity and disaster recovery solutions for organizations where the use of sophisticated technology is a business-critical part of day-to-day operations. With more than 20 years experience, 45 locations topping 1.5 million square feet of space in 17 countries, and over 900 business continuity customers worldwide, SchlumbergerSema has the depth of experience to provide customers with cost-effective solutions that are custom-tailored to their specific needs. DeXa.Ensure is part of the SchlumbergerSema DeXa* Suite of Services for computing infrastructure, global network connectivity and information security technology.
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About Computershare
Computershare (ASX: CPU) is a leading financial services and technology provider for the global securities industry, providing services and solutions to listed companies, investors, employees, exchanges and other financial institutions. It is the largest and only global transfer agent, managing more than 68 million shareholder accounts for over 7,500 corporations in ten countries on five continents. It also provides sophisticated trading technology to financial markets in fourteen countries across each major time zone. Additional information may be found at www.computershare.com
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© Press Release 2006
