Case Study
Background
At just after 6.00am on Sunday 11 December 2005, three explosions at the Buncefield Oil Depot in Hemel Hempstead led to what was probably the largest fire that this country has seen since the Second World War.
For three days, up to 150 fire fighters battled to extinguish this unprecedented inferno.
The Challenge
Many offices in the area were seriously damaged with windows blown out for miles around and sending a massive plume of black smoke into the air. One of their offices was a customer of one of Griffin's partners.
The fabric of their building, the fixtures and equipment inside were badly damaged. The back-up systems that were in place had been rendered inoperable. The force of the blast heavily damaged the building, blackening and collapsing one side and leaving debris strewn around the site. Inside, computer systems that provided payroll and human resource services for private companies, servers hosting organizational web sites and hosted services for local governments, police, fire and health services were destroyed.
The 150,000-square-foot building sustained at least "several million pounds" worth of damage.
Valuable data, which included information from five hospitals had to be recompiled. Some hospitals keep written records while others store electronic data locally, officials said.
The force of the explosion was so strong that a buried back-up generator with its own fuel supply was ripped out of the ground.
The company has set up new hardware systems at its 25 facilities throughout the U.K to replace the destroyed ones, however their BT Central Pipe which provides broadband access to 300 customers could not be replaced so quickly.
The Solution
The company contacted their IT partner for advice about what could be done for their broadband customers, who in turn called Griffin's 24/7 emergency help desk and was immediately escalated to Director level.
"Griffin Internet, provided our customer with an L2TP solution delivered directly into Telecity where some of their backup servers were located. Griffin's wholesale L2TP solution is exactly like a replacement BT central pipe, meaning that minimum work was required to get this service up and running with existing equipment."
Adrian Sunderland - Chief Technical Officer, Griffin Internet
The BT lead time to replace a central pipe is usually 3 months, however BT were able to set Griffin up to take over the end-user ADSL circuits within 24 hours. The next day Griffin personnel and our customer went to Telecity to help set up the back-up servers and by Tuesday morning customers were up and running.
Griffin Internet was able to supply a secure L2TP tunnel to deliver services to replace the damaged central pipe within 24 hours. End-users, who used to access hosted solutions via a BT central pipe, were able to access them via Griffin's L2TP solution, ensuring business continuity for customers.
Griffin Internet provides the University with a 100% business continuity guarantee which ensures that every possible effort is maintained to keep the Learning Centre's valuable resources available to students and academics 24 hours a day
"We are passionate about business continuity and have invested heavily in our network to be able to provide innovative solutions to ensure businesses are prepared in times of crisis,"
Adrian Sunderland