Verizon Business offers comprehensive resilience service

Verizon Business today unveiled the first of what it says will be a set of end-to-end solutions, launching a Business Resilience Solutions portfolio designed to help mid-sized to large businesses maintain continuity during large disasters or small service outages.

The portfolio attempts to address all aspects of maintaining business continuity, including proactive planning, incident mitigation and recovery, said Barry Zipp, vice president-solutions for Verizon Business, including providing systems integration and professional consulting services.

“We are known for our innovative products, but with this approach we will deliver end-to-end value, marrying to those products strong and comprehensive consulting and integration services as well as third-party capabilities that add a unique value proposition,” Zipp said in a net conference.

Other end-to-end solutions to come from Verizon Business include collaborative services, seamless mobility and supply chain management, Zipp said.

Verizon Business built its Business Resilience Solutions in part from its own experience in developing its own internal business continuity plan, said Bill Hummel, director of resilience solutions at Verizon Business.

“We are going to marry our product set with third-party hardware and software and focus on five areas,” he said. Those including planning, network infrastructure, data retention and security, maintaining voice service and supporting people, Hummel said.

Verizon is teaming up with Stohl Systems, maker of software tools for business continuity planning, to develop a comprehensive approach to preparing for outages and disasters of all types.

“We want to work up front with our customer to build in efficiency versus just putting in alternate network or set of routers,” Hummel said.

The company also worked with Cisco Systems and EMC to develop a means of controlling distributed data to maintain integrity through a centralized process while still enabling real-time interaction with remote access points.

Sean Hackett, research manager, business management services at IDC, said Verizon’s new service comes at a time when weather-related issues, geopolitical turmoil and even the outsourcing of some services is adding to risk even as companies are more dependent on network services for their business operations.

Hackett said IDC expects the worldwide market for business continuity services to be $90 billion by 2007, and the North American market to be $35 billion.