About LEARN: Activities & Accomplishments

Lamar University Utilizes LEARN For Disaster Recovery

In the connected world that we live in today, information technology is no longer used simply to support business processes, it enables them. Most organizations simply could not operate using the old pencil-and-paper processes of just a few years ago. Lamar University is no exception; the IT systems that run their mission-critical business processes must be continually available. But, being located in Beaumont near the Texas coast presents some special challenges when it comes to keeping those systems running. Every year, hurricanes enter the Gulf of Mexico, and threaten to deluge the university's campus. The wind and rain can flood buildings, as well as knocking out power and communications lines. A robust disaster recovery plan is required in order to assure continued services despite the recurring annual risk of natural disasters.

Once upon a time the only disaster recovery plan available was, once a hurricane entered the Gulf of Mexico, all core systems would be backed up to tape over the period of a couple days and the tapes were loaded on a truck and sent off to Texas State University in San Marcos for safe keeping. Today, Lamar University utilizes the high-speed LEARN network to synchronize data in near real-time to their disaster recovery environment in San Marcos.

With the acquisition of RecoverPoint from EMC, Lamar University has entered in to a new era of data reliability and security in the event of any, disaster affecting our local data facilities. Without the LEARN network, it would be impossible to ensure Lamar's systems would be available to provide critical services for their customers.