|
Post by Andy on Sept 2, 2016 10:59:01 GMT
I have spoken with our IT consultants and they have categorically told me that in no way would a power outage encrypt data. Their main concern was why the system did not fail over to the backup in the South of England and why there was only one generator providing secondary power. Their stance on it was that it is highly likely that there has been some sort of hack (probably ransomware) and that SSP have involved an outside firm (prob as part of they cyber/commercial crime insurance) to recover any data and deal with the reputational damage which is why there is a lack of updates. It may be an idea to keep this forum running so that we can all sing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to post event matters/compensation/looking at their SLA etc etc All in all, it is terrible and I hope that there is a full and frank statement following this debacle. I wish you all luck in getting things back as soon as possible. Keep smiling
|
|
|
Post by Exsspuser on Sept 2, 2016 11:46:44 GMT
I have spoken with our IT consultants and they have categorically told me that in no way would a power outage encrypt data. Their main concern was why the system did not fail over to the backup in the South of England and why there was only one generator providing secondary power. Their stance on it was that it is highly likely that there has been some sort of hack (probably ransomware) and that SSP have involved an outside firm (prob as part of they cyber/commercial crime insurance) to recover any data and deal with the reputational damage which is why there is a lack of updates. It may be an idea to keep this forum running so that we can all sing from the same hymn sheet when it comes to post event matters/compensation/looking at their SLA etc etc All in all, it is terrible and I hope that there is a full and frank statement following this debacle. I wish you all luck in getting things back as soon as possible. Keep smiling There was definitely a powercut there last Friday- see Western Power's Twitter I got the feeling SSPs hardware was well past its sell by date - hence why running unsupported versions of Citrix.
|
|
|
Post by Itsajoke!!! on Sept 2, 2016 12:18:09 GMT
Second data centre ensures speedy data recovery.
SSP has two data centres, one located in southern England, the second in the midlands. Our disaster recovery options include the ability to copy all your data between the two data centres every fifteen minutes via a dedicated high-speed connection. Each data centre acts as a backup for the other, ensuring that if one data centre is unavailable the other can take over.
SSP’s hosting and managed services – top 10 benefits 1.Your data is backed up every fifteen minutes, ensuring speedy recovery if the need arises. 2.Your data is accessible from any internet connection for easy access when you need it. 3.Scalability with your business. State of the art infrastructure that can grow with your business. 4.Managed firewall and software offers protection from hacking, virus and malware attacks. 5.All your hosted software and hardware upgrades and repairs are handled by us for no extra charge. 6.ISO27001 compliance ensures data protection. 7.24/7 on-call UK-based support for web services and core infrastructure. 8.Experience - 18 years of hosting in the industry. 9.Tried and tested - 7000 users across the UK. 10.Established partnerships with other leading software providers - Microsoft Gold partner.
|
|
|
Post by ITConsultant on Sept 2, 2016 13:03:18 GMT
M3 was a good system but as support for it is removed there is no option but to pick it's replacement. The SSP Pure back in the day when it was launched as Sirius was cutting edge be it with problems im sure Hayes Parsons remember being an early adopter. They fought through the issues and produced a reasonable system that a lot of brokers used. Moving it to the cloud was a good decision for a lot of brokers as it removed the demand for onsite servers and solutions and allowed the flexibility to work anywhere. They do need to update the code to .Net and move away from Citrix and maybe at some point this will happen. The Disaster recovery policy is obviously currently showing holes very large holes, i struggle to see how power issues can cause this level of down time when protected behind a UPS. Even if hardware has failed HP would source and dispatch this within a few hours and the failed hardware would be replaced allowing the system to come back on. There is more to this than people are being told, what about if the problem has occurred as there was a power failure over the weekend and the generator failed to start. This caused all servers to shut down gracefully via the UPS and then once restarted Malware infected these servers on startup and caused issues with the data which also replicated across to the DR site. This would explain why there has been no option to fail users to the other data centre. They can not restore from backups as the backups have had this Malware infection sitting dormant for days weeks months and it has only become apparent when the servers came back on line. Just my thought process not actual fact !!
|
|
|
Post by M3 on Sept 2, 2016 13:33:50 GMT
M3 was a good system but as support for it is removed there is no option but to pick it's replacement. The SSP Pure back in the day when it was launched as Sirius was cutting edge be it with problems im sure Hayes Parsons remember being an early adopter. They fought through the issues and produced a reasonable system that a lot of brokers used. Moving it to the cloud was a good decision for a lot of brokers as it removed the demand for onsite servers and solutions and allowed the flexibility to work anywhere. They do need to update the code to .Net and move away from Citrix and maybe at some point this will happen. The Disaster recovery policy is obviously currently showing holes very large holes, i struggle to see how power issues can cause this level of down time when protected behind a UPS. Even if hardware has failed HP would source and dispatch this within a few hours and the failed hardware would be replaced allowing the system to come back on. There is more to this than people are being told, what about if the problem has occurred as there was a power failure over the weekend and the generator failed to start. This caused all servers to shut down gracefully via the UPS and then once restarted Malware infected these servers on startup and caused issues with the data which also replicated across to the DR site. This would explain why there has been no option to fail users to the other data centre. They can not restore from backups as the backups have had this Malware infection sitting dormant for days weeks months and it has only become apparent when the servers came back on line. Just my thought process not actual fact !! Support for M3 hasn't been removed at all. There's still developments going on for the bigger brokers and current M3 users who are reluctant to move to Pure are being given the option of upgrading to a Linux (rather than SCO) based system. Unfortunately SSP paid far too much for Sirius and had been sold a bit of a lemon. They had to make use because of investors.
|
|
|
Post by M3 on Sept 2, 2016 13:34:01 GMT
M3 was a good system but as support for it is removed there is no option but to pick it's replacement. The SSP Pure back in the day when it was launched as Sirius was cutting edge be it with problems im sure Hayes Parsons remember being an early adopter. They fought through the issues and produced a reasonable system that a lot of brokers used. Moving it to the cloud was a good decision for a lot of brokers as it removed the demand for onsite servers and solutions and allowed the flexibility to work anywhere. They do need to update the code to .Net and move away from Citrix and maybe at some point this will happen. The Disaster recovery policy is obviously currently showing holes very large holes, i struggle to see how power issues can cause this level of down time when protected behind a UPS. Even if hardware has failed HP would source and dispatch this within a few hours and the failed hardware would be replaced allowing the system to come back on. There is more to this than people are being told, what about if the problem has occurred as there was a power failure over the weekend and the generator failed to start. This caused all servers to shut down gracefully via the UPS and then once restarted Malware infected these servers on startup and caused issues with the data which also replicated across to the DR site. This would explain why there has been no option to fail users to the other data centre. They can not restore from backups as the backups have had this Malware infection sitting dormant for days weeks months and it has only become apparent when the servers came back on line. Just my thought process not actual fact !!
|
|
|
Post by M3 User on Sept 2, 2016 15:58:13 GMT
Bearing in mind all the comments about preferring M3 is there anyone out there who actually has something good to say about Pure? M3 was/is a great system. Since moving to Pure we have had nothing but problems. Our staff have found the change really challenging and subsequently we have major accounts issues. Our commissions are all wrong, our letters don't work properly and the system keeps freezing. We have been sold a basket case that was not even finished. I don't think pure can cope with the number of users or applications and processes. The system is over complicated, give me M3 any day of the work. I am seriously considering another software provider. I spoke to a solicitor earlier and they think we could have good case for breach of contract and something called enforced contract which basically means we forced into signing a contract under pressure that we did not need to. Apparently there was nothing in the M3 contract saying we had to leave it or that it could be replaced. This story has got a long way to go. I would think there are hundreds of Ssp users that feel they have been needlessly forced to migrate to pure. Thanks for your comments. Obviously, I am very pleased that we backed out of our contract to move to Pure when we realised from the demo system that there were serious failings but I am certainly not gloating at all you poor Pure users who have been let down so badly by SSP in providing a half finished system and the current situation is terrible. I am by no means a computer expert but their explanations do not make sense and like others I suspect there is a bigger story out there. I really don't know how SSP will ever restore the Brokers confidence.
We have a Client who operates a cloud data storage centre with a mirror site, UPS protection and a backup generator. They frequently test and verify their disaster recovery systems and they cannot understand how this can possibly happen to SSP in the way in which SSP are describing it.
|
|
planb
New Member
Posts: 3
|
Post by planb on Sept 6, 2016 10:47:37 GMT
Coming from an IT recovery angle, SSP seem to have been quite unfortunate in their issues. However, their DR provisions have been slightly over-exaggerated in their promises of speedy recovery to a 2nd data centre in this statement "our disaster recovery options include the ability to copy all your data between the two data centres every fifteen minutes via a dedicated high-speed connection. Each data centre acts as a backup for the other, ensuring that if one data centre is unavailable the other can take over".
This means when you are recovered (and I hope this is soon) you should only lose 15 minutes of data, but recovery will be slow as they will be re-building full systems in a 2nd data centre, and then have to unpack all the backup data and install it on the new systems. It's unfortunately a common method of DR to save money - rather than running standby systems in a 2nd data centre which can be running instantly (but is very costly).
If you want to remain with SSP I would start asking about their DR plans, and around guaranteed recovery timnes or demand an Escrow agreement, which means in the event of a failure to run your services, another 3rd party company can do so immediately to ensure continuity. We do this for SaaS Providers so they can offer customers guaranteed immediate recovery in such an event so it is possible......
Best of luck to all of you, if you need any help with this please let me know.
|
|