Reliability and Security
ADVANCED ACCESS Information Technology Department

Computers have certainly changed the way business people work, communicate and make everyday decisions.  In keeping with this current trend, the ADVANCED ACCESS Information Technology Department continuously plays a vital role in understanding how changing technology needs to evolve to meet changing business needs.  To allow client growth and technical change, ADVANCED ACCESS is committed to providing a cutting-edge Information Technology Department that is among the leaders in the industry today.  The IT staff has been designed to allow our employees to perform more efficiently and effectively.  As information technology spreads throughout the organization's structure, staff is allowed to interact with all the components of our products, programs and services.

Currently we have over 120 servers on-line in our Data Centers. These servers perform many vital functions including hosting of the Classic and Deluxe sites as well as many that perform backend processes, store customer data, and handle our internal accounting and customer service departments.  A brief overview of our systems is below:

SONET Fiber Loop

Provides two geographically separate paths for our fiber connections to backbone provider's networks.

Redundant Cisco Routers and Switches

We use only best of breed Routers and Switches to power our internal network.  Highlights include multiple 7206 VXR Routers, Catalyst 3750 Gigabit Switches and Catalyst 6509 Backbone Routers/Switches.

Bandwidth

• 2 Gigabits via redundant connections from the Internet to our Data Center
• Three DS-3's provide the bandwidth to our Main office.
• Each circuit terminates at different providers ensuring we are not dependent on any one provider.
• High-speed fully licensed 100 Megabit fixed wireless backup which provides bandwidth in the event of physical damage to landlines.
• Only Tier 1 Providers selected to provide PAID transport services for our data.
• Enhanced BGP-4 Routing used to ensure shortest path routing for all traffic.
• InterNAP FCP Routing Control and Optimization.

Storage Management

• EMC Clariion CX 300
• Acts as a second layer of redundancy and data storage.
• Allows expansion without downtime, facilitating continual indefinite growth.
• EMC Clariion FC-4700
• Third layer of redundancy for data storage.
• Allows online growth while maintaining reasonable costs.
• Network Appliance Filer
• Stores and ensures redundancy of our data.
• Provides SNAP SHOT views of our data, allowing rollbacks in hour increments for up to one week.
• Provides seamless growth for future storage needs.
• 12 Terabytes of available storage.

Load Balancing and Redundancy

• Foundry Network Web Switches
• Ensures peak performance and optimal uptime for our servers by routing requests to the least busy server, or in case of failure routing requests to alternate servers to ensure all requests are completed successfully.

• IBM BladeCenter Powered Servers
• Utilize the best in breed Blade technology to deliver on-demand capacity and fault tolerance.

Security

• Redundant Ironport Anti-Spam Appliances
• Filters review and remove spam and viruses from all e-mails sent to our clients through their websites.
• Provides superior level of protection to our clients.
• Redundant PIX Firewalls
• Filters all incoming traffic and protects all servers from unauthorized access.
• Provides a virtual honey-pot to detect and prevent automated attacks against our resources.
• Redundant Tipping Point Intrusion Prevention System
• Multiple Intrusion Prevention devices constantly monitor all inbound traffic.
• Alerts and prevents most known attacks.

Email Delivery

IronPort Mail Delivery Appliances

• Best in class MTA
• Symantec Brightmail Spam Scanning
• IronPort Reputation Based Filters

Physical Security

High security - Entry includes bullet proof glass enclosure, and a man-trap.

Security guards on duty at the facility 24/7.

Disaster Planning

• 24/7 Monitoring
• All system monitored 24/7/365.
• Notification sent to Server Engineers within 60 seconds of an outage.
• On-line Four separate Uninterruptible Power Supply units
• Provides at least 60 minutes of battery power should a power interruption occur.
• On Site Redundant Emergency Generators
• Available to ensure power availability should a long-term power outage occur.
• On-Line Backups
• Provides a continual data protection with immediate access to backups performed within the last two weeks.
• Off Site Backups
• Provides access to historical tape backups as well as to ensure protection of data from any natural disasters that should occur at our Company Headquarters.