SYNETIQ protects itself and clients from software failure with The Cloud

SYNETIQ has made a significant investment to allow its software solutions to run in the Cloud which includes both Microsoft’s Azure and Amazon’s AWS. This includes core services such as its SQL Database, Web Services and File (Image) Storage and of course our on-line Auction. Moving to the cloud means SYNETIQ can utilise High Availability Features to protect itself and its clients against potential problems associated with server failure.

SYNETIQ is committed to investment in new, innovative technology. Its dedicated team of developers are always looking for new ways to increase the security and performance of systems. This approach allows SYNETIQ to provide the best value possible for clients that rely on its software solutions and its Auction.

Software outages have the potential to disrupt or even halt operations within a business, as a result SYNETIQ has opted for the Business-Critical Service for its new Azure hosted SQL databases.

Azure’s Business-Critical Service means that the database is distributed across four servers in three different London availability zones. Each availability zone is based in unique physical location and is made up of one or more datacentres equipped with independent power, cooling, and networking. Azure’s Business-Critical Service also means the hard drives (SSDs) used to store data are located close to the servers, providing ultimate performance. This insures that SYNETIQ and its clients can now enjoy improved performance and high availability, removing critical single points of failure.

Increased performance: Because the databases now run from multiple servers typically heavy tasks such as running reports now have no impact on performance of systems. We can scale up the power and size of our servers as demand requires. The Auction for example auto-scales up its servers as is required for the number of bidders and then scales back down when an auction has finished thereby keeping cists to a minimum too.

Protection: Databases are now continually backed up to separate secure locations. So, in the extremely unlikely event of all of Azure’s London data centres going offline, SYNETIQ could restore back to a point within five minutes of the outage.

Dave Harcourt, IT Director at SYNETIQ, said: “Ensuring business resilience was a key factor for us when we chose to make the significant investment in Cloud technology. Our business and our clients rely on us keeping key services at capacity.

“We are always looking for ways to push to make our systems even more safe and secure as our business continues to scale. Its key that we put security and innovation at the forefront of everything we do.”