Overview of SunGard CMS

As a continuation of my later post Business Continuity Management tools, I'm going to analyse deeply a tool which I've been with and I've some experience.  It's Continuity Management Solution Suite by SunGard Availability Services.

First of all is to speak about Sungard: is an Amercian company with headquarters in Wayne, Pennsylvania, born as a spin-of the IT department of a the oil company SUNOCO (Sun Oil Company), with a high presence in USA. The meaning of SunGard is Sun Guaranteed Access to Recovered Data, what shows the focus of their activity.

Sungard has four divisions: Availability Services, Financial Systems, K-12 Education and Public Sector, being the suit CMS  under SunGard AS division.

SunGard AS has its focus on Continuity, offering a huge portfolio that include workstation, recovery data centers, consultancy services, offices, mobile data centers and BC management software. In Spain the Authorized Represented of SunGard to BCM software is Sistemas Informáticos Abiertos (SIA) , offering also BC consultancy services and BC managed services.

Suite CMS by SunGard AS is on 7 modules, with the intention to include some additional module. All modules are presesented in the following picture:

Modules that are currently part of the suite are the following:

Los módulos que componen actualmente le suite son los siguiente:

• LDRPS : Living Disaster Recovery Planning System, is the core of the suite. Contain database that are the inventory of whole organization: employees, facilities, applications, technology, etc. Response procedures and plans are defined on this module.
• BIA Professional: In one of the four assessment modules. It's though to carry out impact analysis through web questionnaires that has to be responded by final users. Responses are stored in the different databases of LDRPS and are the source for plans automations. .
• Risk Assessment: Other assessment module, focused on risk. Identifys the main risks that affect to the different locations.
• Work Force Assessment: to evaluate the knowledge and preparedness of the employee.
• Vendor Assessment: to evaluate the preparedness of suppliers. 
• Incident Manager: It's a management board to manage crisis and help in the tracking of procedures defined in plans. It also provides alternative communications mechanisms, manage internal and external communications procedures, unique point of contact for coordination, etc..
• Notifind: completes the suite with communication massive communication features. Information stored in LDRPS is synchronized whit in databases located in operator Varolii in order to grant that communications are going to be carried out and any company resource are not going to be used.