The opening of the new centres follows the signing of a dedicated workplace recovery contract with a major international bank, and aims to meet the demand from international businesses for high levels of resilience for their key operations, whereby mission critical, off-shore or outsourced business processes are protected according to business value, not just location.

The Workplace Recovery centres are located in Thane, near Mumbai, and Noida, near New Delhi. Built to the latest design standards, the facility at Noida will offer over 400 workplace recovery positions and is ideally placed to serve businesses in Delhi, Noida and Gurgaon. The Thane operation provides 243 seats and is well positioned to provide recovery capabilities to companies west of the Sanjay Gandhi National Park, as well as those in Navi Mumbai and the new business districts developing near the airport at Santacruz and Bandra Kurla. Both facilities provide the option for future phases of development in line with industry requirements.

"This expansion is as a result of direct demand from global businesses - particularly in the financial sector - for the same levels of security and resilience that they enjoy in their other territories," says Keith Tilley, managing director UK and executive vice-president Europe for SunGard Availability Services. "Organisations are becoming increasingly aware of the effect that major disruptions can have on their business, wherever it's located. In the current economic environment, it's unthinkable to have large swathes of your workforce out of action as a result of a business disruption."

SunGard Availability Services has a significant presence within India through a 250-strong team of dedicated professionals, including software development support for SunGard's business continuity management software.

"SunGard's unrivalled heritage for robustness and scalability, combined with our existing knowledge of the Indian busiiness landscape - including the challenges peculiar to the competitive Business Process Outsourcing sector - means we are well placed to deliver cost-effective availability solutions of high global standards for businesses located in India. We see this as just the initial phase of our expansion in India and are currently reviewing options for additional services as well as locations," Tilley added.

To head up Indian operations, SunGard has appointed Balachander Vasireddi as general manager for India. Vasireddi brings over 25 years' experience to SunGard, working in various customer-facing leadership roles within the IT industry, both in India and the US, including responsibility for managing hundreds of staff across globally dispersed service delivery teams. Vasireddi's career also includes successful periods with businesses including Sun Microsystems and Marimba (now part of BMC), along with USi, where he started and grew its India Operations Center to a 600+ member team over five years.