We all like to think that we will be prepared in the event of an emergency, or a disaster. Hospitals exist if we fall sick; fire stations surround us if flames break loose; we are constantly preparing so if a catastrophe strikes, we are ready.

Preparing for a system’s disaster is no different. However, how to go about preparing for an event like this can be confusing. There are many options out there when it comes to protecting your system, each best suited for specific requirement. Unfortunately, many vendors use terms like disaster recovery and high availability interchangeably to describe their solutions when in fact they are usually designed for one or the other.

Disaster Recovery (DR) is the way to recover applications and from a system failure. DR is a reactive solution where if a failure occurs, IT relocates the data, builds the system over, and brings everything back up to working order. This takes time, a precious commodity that typically businesses relying on critical applications don’t have. In addition, recovering applications could bring about a number of side effects which you really don’t want to endure every time some minor failure happens.

But what if I could tell you that instead of worrying about how to recover from a computer system failing, you could simply prevent it from occurring at all?

Disaster tolerance (DT) is a proactive way to prevent system failure from impacting application and data availability. A disaster tolerant solution isn’t going to recover the data if there’s a disaster. Instead it will tolerate the fault if a disaster occurs – keeping an organization’s critical applications up and running at all times. It is not recovery, but rather prevention. And with solutions like our everRun SplitSite, separate servers don’t even need to be in the same building – they can be up to 100 miles apart with fault-tolerant protection between the two locations.

DR solutions are good for applications that can afford some downtime while you recover them. But for essential applications like Microsoft Exchange, SQL, and SharePoint, which need to be available all the time, disaster tolerance is often the best way to go.

So what combination of DT and DR protection would work best for your company’s applications?

A few week’s ago I wrote about virtualization in large enterprises – chronicling conversations I’ve had with Fortune 100 CEOs and CIOs. Following Jerry’s Mid-Market podcast, I thought I would chime in with my thoughts on virtualization in the Mid-Market; especially since the introduction of products like Hyper-V will increase mainstream adoption at the Mid-Market level significantly.

Mid-Market companies have completely different drivers for adopting virtualization than the larger companies. The key question for Mid-Market level CIOs is “can I consolidate everything?” Most large companies have the ability to segment out the applications they want to virtualize and allocate the appropriate staff to pull it off in a phased approach. Mid-Market companies lack that luxury. They are often times short staffed and have little resources to conduct this sort of deployment. And in many cases, if they can’t consolidate all of the apps, the return doesn’t pencil out.

Why haven’t more Mid-Market companies deployed server virtualization?

One of the first and foremost concerns on the mind of Mid-Market CIO’s I’ve talked to is that they want to be sure that they are going to be able to get and provide the same service as before. Keeping business critical applications like Exchange and SQL up and running, not only effects employees, but also customers and partners as well.

Another major concern which has prohibited Mid-Market companies from deploying is the idea that there are specialized skills required to maintain a virtual environment. This should not be a concern. While some virtualization platforms do require specialized IT skills, new platforms such as Citrix XenServer and Microsoft Hyper-V can realistically be deployed without an army of IT folks or a lot of specialized virtualization skills.

If you’re a Mid-Market company facing a virtualization hurdle, leave me a comment here. We would gladly dive-in to see if we can help you get over it.

Virtualization has saturated the market in terms of awareness, but implementation of this highly efficient technology is still reserved for early adopters. After many months of being the media darling, virtualization has only managed to infiltrate about 10% of Fortune 100 businesses. Should we be concerned at the rate businesses are adopting virtualization?

Through recent discussions with Fortune 100 CEOs and CIOs, it is evident that the past 12 months have been the proving grounds for virtualization. Industry leaders that I have talked to from the Financial, Pharmaceutical, Media and Broadcasting space recognize that the value of virtualization goes beyond just cost savings. The real strategic driver of virtualization is the ability to deploy new applications in hours instead of months; which can translate into drastically shrinking the time to market for new products and services.

Over the next 12 months, that 10% will certainly grow as more and more large enterprises see the value on their bottom line, improvement in business processes and the acceleration of new products and services. We’ll see more integration, customization and validation as time goes on. Even though most of the Fortune 100 has already deployed some virtualization, the opportunity for growth is astounding. One Pharmaceutical company I spoke with plans to virtualize 80% of its applications by 2012…starting now.

The rate at which large enterprise businesses are starting to adopt virtualization technology is about to reach the tipping point. We’re excited to be part of the process, by developing solutions that help large enterprises gain the benefits of virtualization across a much broader range of applications.

David Maldonado was the lucky winner of the 8GB iPod Touch for his input into: What hurdles does/did your organization need to overcome in order to deploy a virtual environment.

We appreciate the input from all those who participated and remember the conversation doesn’t have to end….any additional feedback is always
welcome!

After much speculation and blogosphere rumors, we decided it was time to let the cat out of the bag and officially launch everRun VM! Of course, for an announcement this big, we thought unveiling the news LIVE right here on the blog was the best way to inform the press, analysts and general public about the new product we’ve been working so hard on. So, tell your friends you heard it here first!

Wait a minute? The release crossed the wire this morning? Gary, Michael, Steve and Jerry have already been talking to the press?

Well, then….

You Heard it Here… Eighth (or Ninth)!!!

We’ve included some links to the everRun VM coverage below. We’ll keep you posted on the progress of everRun VM beta testing and the feedback we receive from testers. In the meantime, enjoy the articles and leave us a comment if your interested in learning more about the product. As you can tell from all the quotes in these articles, we’re always happy to talk!

Marathon Releases Virtual HA, Fault Tolerance
Byte and Switch
http://www.byteandswitch.com/document.asp?doc_id=149019&WT.svl=news2_1

Marathon’s Virtualization Tool Simplifies Disaster Recovery
CIO
http://www.cio.com/article/print/202350

Get fault tolerant virtual servers
Computerworld
http://blogs.computerworld.com/get_fault_tolerant_virtual_servers

Marathon Launches Fault-Tolerant Software For Server Virtualization
CRN
http://www.crn.com/hardware/206905384

Marathon extends fault tolerance to VMs
IDG

• CIO
  http://www.cio.com/article/202450/Marathon_Extends_Fault_Tolerance_to_VMs
• InfoWorld
  http://www.infoworld.com/article/08/03/24/Marathon-extends-fault-tolerance-to-VMs_1.html
• Network World
  http://www.networkworld.com/news/2008/032408-marathon-extends-fault-tolerance-to.html

everRun VM Hits the Ground Running
Virtual Strategy Magazine
http://www.virtual-strategy.com/vsm-podcasts/everrun-vm-hits-the-ground-running.html

We all know that the “buzzword” of 2008 is virtualization and that CIO’s are rifling through piles of information to determine the best fit for their organization. But what about companies like Citrix and VMware who produce the virtual environments? What are their plans for 2008?

Tarry Singh discusses some of his predictions for the industry here. What’s interesting to note is his foresight into the HA market and the growing need for player’s in the industry, like VMware, to utilize virtualization management applications as enhancements to their existing systems. Check out this post which highlights visions for 2008 from Simon Crosby (Citrix) and Dr. Mendel Roseblum (VMware).