IBM sells Web disaster insurance

MIS managers have long bought disaster recovery services for critical mainframe applications. But what happens if your now-essential electronic commerce Web server goes up in flames?

You'll need complete backup and recovery or your site is out of business.

Facing this challenge, IBM, the pioneer of mainframe disaster recovery, has also come up with a set of services to protect Internet applications. As part of its effort, IBM has gotten AT&T and MCI, along with its own IBM Global Services, to cooperate in rerouting IP traffic to a backup site so electronic commerce can continue during a crisis.

"With these ISPs, we've developed a way to redirect traffic in the event of a disaster, such as a building burning down," explains Michael Solter, IBM's manager for business recovery services, adding that he hopes to see similar arrangements with other ISPs.

"Through coordination with the ISP, we advertise the customer's address space so Internet traffic is redirected to the IBM 'hot site,' " Solter says. At these disaster recovery hot sites, such as the ones in Sterling Forest, N.Y., and Boulder, Colo., duplicates of the customer's electronic commerce servers and databases are maintained and updated 24-7.

Publisher John Wiley & Sons has used IBM's disaster recovery services for years for its internal network of AS/400 systems. Earlier this year, the company turned to IBM for Web server backup because the company plans to sell publications online, some in digital format.

"With the introduction of the Internet for electronic commerce, and the growing importance of it, Wiley felt it was necessary to take steps to protect Internet computing at the same level it protects corporate computing," says Michael Silverstein, director of technology services.

In Somerset, N.J., Wiley hosts its own server farm that's primarily based on Netscape's Web server software running on the Sun Enterprise Services platform. But with large-scale online book-selling operations expected to start by year-end, Wiley wanted an Internet disaster recovery service so customers could order publications even if its New Jersey data center suffered a wipeout.

"We've tested this backup and it works," says Silverstein of the IBM electronic commerce disaster recovery service.

IBM says it has readied a portfolio of options for its electronic-business disaster recovery services. The options range from server mirroring services from $660 per month per server pair if the customer hosts its own backup server to $2,200 per month if the customer server is housed at IBM's site.