Barcelona & Brussels, May 23, 2014 – To ensure the seamless and secure back up of the 2014 EU Parliamentary Elections Results Website being held on May 22-25, 2014 across all 28 member states, Microsoft will provide its Windows Azure technology as part of the critical deployment of its disaster recovery infrastructure for the Scytl / TNS opinion consortium.
The dissemination of the electoral results via the internet and communication channels guaranteeing up to date results are available to its citizens at all times, is of strategic importance for these elections. To ensure that all systems deployed cater to the timely and consistent publication and availability of data, the strategic Azure back up recovery process will ensure securing vital election results data and maintain continuous results publication operations in the event of any potential natural or human disaster.
“The Windows Azure solution provided for the 2014 EU Parliamentary Elections is of key strategic importance and we are very encouraged that the EU has recognized the robustness, security and reliability of Microsoft Azure and Sctyl’s innovative solution.’ says Ruediger Dorn, Director Cloud Computing for Microsoft Europe, Middle East and Africa.
With the launch of the Results Website, the European Parliament will leverage innovative election technology to support the challenging and changing needs of multinational and multi-language electoral efficiency strategies. This large scale international project also represents an outstanding opportunity to collaborate with a broad reaching network of international institutes to broadcast the projected and official results from all 28 member states.
Windows Azure is an open and flexible platform that enables any company to build, deploy and manage cloud-based applications across a global network of Microsoft-managed datacenters. As part of the disaster recovery strategy, the Elections Results Website will be replicated securely in Windows Azure’s datacenter in the cloud.
“The strategic partnership with Microsoft continues to bear fruit for both of our organizations,” says Mikel Irizar, SVP WW Marketing at Scytl. “The 2014 EU Parliamentary Elections Web Results Project is a clear example of where complimentary technology can be leveraged for the delivery of a robust ad secure electoral solution.”
In the case of having to initiate the disaster recovery procedures, Windows Azure will apply an intelligent policy engine to the DNS queries on domain names so traffic is automatically sent to the best data center for performance and business continuity purposes. If there is any failure in the primary datacenter (Dublin), Traffic Manager will automatically redirect all traffic to the secondary datacenter (Amsterdam) without the need of human intervention.
About Scytl
Scytl is the global leader in secure election management and electronic voting solutions. Specializing in election modernization technologies, Scytl offers the first end-to-end election management and voting platform, providing the highest security and transparency standards currently available. Scytl has capitalized on its more than 18 years of research to develop election-specific cryptographic security technology protected by more than 40 international patents and patent applications, positioning Scytl as the company with the largest patent portfolio of the industry. Scytl’s solutions have been successfully used in more than 35 countries throughout the world over the last 10 years, including Canada, the United States, Mexico, Ecuador, France, Norway, Switzerland, Iceland, Bosnia-Herzegovina, the UAE, India and Australia. Scytl is headquartered in Barcelona, Spain with strategic offices in Canada, the United States, Peru and Greece as well as field offices in the UK, Ukraine, Australia, Malaysia and Brazil. www.scytl.com
About Microsoft
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Media Contacts
Scytl
Leticia Barcia
Senior Director Marketing Communications, Scytl
leticia.barcia@scytlcom.wpcomstaging.com
+34 934 230 324