Satyam’s business continuity center in Singapore

BANGALORE: Software services major, Satyam Computer Services will set up a business continuity center in Singapore. This would be the first such center outside India. Virender Aggarwal, Senior Vice President and Head of Asia Pacific operations will head the new center.

One of the first few companies in the sector to set in place a robust business continuity plan for itself, Satyam took into account emergencies such as war, civil unrest, fire, power failure and natural calamities such as floods and earthquakes before taking the decision for the center.

Indian software companies with Fortune customers are looking at off-shore disaster recovery and business continuity centers "predicated by increasing customer demands amidst heightened concerns about security," said Satyam’s Chairman Ramalinga Raju.

Besides investing in business continuity capabilities, Satyam will also expand its software development center, commence R&D activities on data warehousing and plans to significantly increase the size of the current team in Singapore.

"Singapore was chosen because of its strategic importance to our entire Asia-Pacific operations, its high level of security and quality of its IT infrastructure. Our decision was also because of the active support of the Singapore Government in areas such as immigration and other related issues," said Raju.

All of Satyam’s five Indian locations under this plan are backed by redundant network connectivity and replication/back-up facilities. This infrastructure is now linked to the Singapore Business Continuity Center by a dedicated high-speed leased line and a separate dedicated Internet links within Singapore, including a dedicated one to a major client with regional headquarters in Singapore.

Separately, the Singapore Business Continuity Center is now linked to Satyam’s offices in Sydney and Melbourne in Australia and the New Jersey office in the United States via ISDN lines and Virtual Private Networks.

To ensure heightened security, the Singapore BC features advanced 24-hour camera surveillance with images of visitors sent via email and SMS and biometric (finger-print identification) security for all staff of Satyam.