Mr Chia Wee Boon (left) and RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay at the launch of NCS’ newly-expanded integrated Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery centre.

Infocomm technology and communication engineering service provider NCS has launched a newly-expanded integrated Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery (BC/DR) centre which increases the facility’s data centre space by one-third to 40,000 sq ft and doubles the disaster recovery (DR) space to some 1,400 work-seat areas. This makes it one of the largest BC/DR sites in Singapore.

Speaking at the centre’s opening ceremony on 18 November 2010, RADM(NS) Ronnie Tay, Chief Executive Officer, Infocomm Development Authority of Singapore (IDA), said the launch of the NCS data centre was “timely, contributing to the growth of Singapore as a Business Continuity and Disaster Recovery Centre for the region”.

As early as 2004, IDA and the Singapore IT Standards Committee established the world’s first standard for BC/DR service providers – the SS507. The standard specifies stringent requirements that service providers must possess in order to provide a “trusted” operating environment. SS507 subsequently became one of the base documents for the ISO/IEC 24762 Guidelines for ICT DR Services which was published in January 2008.

The NCS Data Centre is SS507-certified and also ISO 20000 and ISO 27001-compliant. It provides space for data and software as well as recovery work seats for clients’ key personnel to continue their business activities in times of crisis.

The S$21-million Tier 3 facility took about five months to design and build, said Mr Wong Tew Kiat, Service Delivery Director, Infrastructure Management & Solutions, NCS. Run by a team which includes certified Business Continuity Planning and Data Centre professionals, the data centre is monitored by CCTV 24×7 and has a redundant power supply to ensure that there is always a backup in the event of a power failure. Power redundancy is one of the requirements of a Tier 3 facility, which also has multiple independent networks supporting the IT equipment.

According to NCS, there is a growing demand for BC/DR services in Singapore, motivated by organisations’ increased awareness of the need to mitigate risk exposure. Research firm IDC has estimated that the BC/DR services market in Singapore will grow at 12.7 per cent a year between 2008 and 2013.

Currently, about 25 per cent of the added data centre capacity in NCS’ BC/DR facility has been filled up, and more than 20 enterprises are assessing their requirements. Of these, 50 per cent are from the financial industry.

“For industries such as the financial and healthcare sectors, the need to maintain 24/7 availability is absolutely crucial,” said NCS Chief Executive Officer Mr Chia Wee Boon. Financial institutions, in particular, need to have business continuity plans in place as part of their best practices for business resiliency and operational excellence.

“As the world economy struggles back on its feet after the worldwide recession, it is paramount that companies look into business continuity planning as one of the most important preventive measures against potential threats and disasters,” he said.