Bulgaria | Telecommunication

Bulgarian Telecom

S&T Implements Large Project

The Bulgarian Telecommunications Group (BTC) is the prime supplier of telecommunications services in Bulgaria and employs more than 8,000 experts. The company provides over 2.1 million fixed line connections and has over 1.1 million cell phone customers via its GSM operator Vivatel. The company has state-of the-art digital transmission systems, radio and TV broadcasting facilities and satellite earth stations. The systems use a fiber optics network stretching over 6,000 km, microwave links with distances of over 2,000 km and nationwide Internet and data transmission networks.

The challenge

The availability and security of data, applications and processes plays a critical corporate role for BTC. The company therefore established a central data centre in Sofia in 2004. In 2007, BTC began with the planning, drafting and construction of a Disaster Recovery data center that was to fulfill two critical requirements: firstly, the provision of asynchronous data replication and data consistency with the central data center at all times; secondly, it should be far enough away from Sofia to be able to provide disaster recovery in the event of natural disasters (earthquakes, flooding, massive power outages etc.). S&T Bulgaria was commissioned together with MTI Germany to design and implement this complex project for BTC.

The project

S&T and MTI have implemented a unique Business Continuity und Disaster Recovery Solution based on the proven “EMC Symmetrix Remote Data Facility – SRDF/STAR” technology. This technology allows asynchronous mirroring of data between the central data center (CDC) and the newly established BTC backup data center that lies 600 km away, as well as synchronous data replication between the CDC and an additional proxy location in Sofia. This model, with its three locations, ensures data consistency at all times at a minimum of two locations, thus guaranteeing business continuity and disaster recovery for BTC in the event of local or more widespread disasters.

Benefit to the customer

  • Business Continuity even in the event of hard disk failures
  • Disaster Recovery
  • Data Center Migration
  • Reduction/elimination of backup intervals


Download