Technology Services -> Infrastructure -> Port Authority of NY & NJ

The Port Authority of New York and New Jersey manages and maintains the bridges, tunnels, bus terminals, airports, PATH and seaports that are critical to the bistate region's trade and transportation capabilities. Through their facilities and services, people are able to make vital connections and businesses are able to grow. Providing safe and efficient travel is their highest priority, and enhancing the well being of everyone who lives, works and travels there is their strongest commitment.

Unisys Corporation and Summit Technologies provide IT support for the Port Authority of New York and New Jersey. On September 11th 2001, the Port Authority’s main data center located in Building One of the World Trade Center was destroyed. The Port Authority experienced data and software application loss of an unforeseen magnitude. Over 250 network servers were destroyed, and numerous links and frame relay lines were broken. The Network Directory Services (NDS) tree structure, email addresses and messages were lost. Systems at LaGuardia, Kennedy, and Newark airports were running in stand-alone mode.

Summit moved quickly to establish two disaster recovery sites; one in a converted airplane hangar at Kennedy airport, the other at the Port Authority’s Technology Center in Jersey City, NJ. We redeployed existing technicians and hired new ones. The first priorities were to install new circuits, then obtain and install new servers to replace those destroyed and, at that point, data and users were restored. In some cases, software applications had to be recovered or rewritten, re-tested, and re-deployed. Initial recovery efforts posed secondary problems. Shipment of all obtainable server inventory resulted in a difficult-to-manage heterogeneous environment. Equipment had to be moved from the initial recovery sites to the new office space once that was located.

Summit restored the Port Authority’s network infrastructure as quickly as possible; new frame relay lines were run within 24 hours. Basic applications were soon up and running, with priorities established for completion of the disaster recovery.