Discovery Health, one of South Africa`s premier private healthcare insurance companies, has safeguarded its mission-critical data and IT systems with disaster recovery specialist Business Recovery Services (BRS), a Computer Configurations Holdings company.
Discovery Health markets a complete range of medical insurance products and services for companies and individuals, including the Discovery family of healthcare financing products and its branded health lifestyle scheme, Vitality.
John Robertson, executive director of IT facilities and systems development, says Discovery Health considers disaster recovery a fundamental component of its IT growth strategy.
"Our IT systems have to be operational 24 hours a day, seven days a week," says Robertson. "The cost to our business for every hour of downtime during working hours is in the region of R100 000."
In this context, recovering from a disaster such as fire, flood or theft takes careful planning. Robertson uses the example of the company`s growth to make the point: "In January 1993, our first monthly premium bill was R100 000," he says. "In January 1999, that figure was R241 million, and we expect total premium income to reach R2,5 billion for the financial year ending 30 June 1999."
Discovery Health maintains two key IT infrastructures: a Sun Solaris platform for its main business systems and an Intel platform for its DiscoveryLink Web-based service.
"Our business systems process every call - voice, fax and data - including claims queries, hospital benefit confirmations and case tracking, as well as an all-hours interactive Web resource for our clients," says Robertson. "This means any downtime for any reason is detrimental to the welfare and financial wellbeing of our clients."
Robertson says the King Report on corporate governance further outlined the danger to companies of not having sufficient recovery procedures in place in the event of a disaster. "Having identified disaster recovery as integral to our growth, it became clear that we had to select a reliable business partner alert to the sensitivities and requirements of our business," he adds. "BRS can service a business of our size, and more importantly has access to the voice logging facilities we need to conduct our business off-site."
Discovery Health`s contract with BRS is specifically tailored to its business needs. "We guarantee in our contract that the correct equipment is available to Discovery Health in the event of a disaster, including Sun Solaris and Corollary servers," says BRS MD Frederick Castleman. "Our facility is designed to cater for any contingency, including a dedicated satellite feed, uninterrupted power supplies and controlled security access."
BRS worked closely with Discovery Health to determine its optimal disaster recovery configuration. "As a specialist health insurer we are contracted to our clients to provide secure, error-free service without falling foul to fraud or data loss along the way," says Robertson. "The voice logging facility at BRS is one example of our commitment to that service."
Discovery Health conducts monthly tests to synchronise the BRS facility with its dynamic business environment. Robertson adds that Discovery Health had to find the balance between the number of seats and facilities it needed without over-specifying its requirements and incurring unnecessary costs.
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