Disaster recovery

TNS Canada operates two main hardware platforms / systems applications: Dell servers operating under Microsoft Windows; SUN Microsystems operating under UNIX. There are three servers running under each application at our head office. These application servers are used to collect and analyze all of our research data. System redundancy and data recovery have been implemented on all servers. All data collected and analyzed is stored on a disk array that has the disks RAID configured.

In the event of a major system failure, work could be transferred to the alternate application server via the networked disk array, or via a restore from the most recent tape backup. There is a 28-day (7 days/week) rotating backup on all systems. The backups start during the late evening / early morning backing-up the full system from the previous day. Every day, the tapes are changed in the morning and the previous days backup is taken off-site for the night.

All of the paper products (i.e. questionnaires) collected by mail, personal field and mall intercept go through standard editing, coding and key entry/scanning processes, at which time the data is included in the backup and archive process. Paper questionnaires are sent off site to secure storage when processing for the study is complete.

All production hardware is under maintenance contracts with a four-hour response time. In addition, our distributed processes minimize the risk of potential downtime and lost data. Any ASPs utilized for processing survey data have disaster recovery mechanisms in place. In addition, any data processed with ASPs is routinely downloaded onto in-house machines for added assurance.

A comprehensive corporate wide Business Recovery/Disaster Recovery plan was rolled out this year. Full off-site systems disaster recovery facilities will be provisioned later this year.