In the vehicle manufacturing industry, companies want an efficient and economical way to ensure smooth operation of all servers, software and applications. Any instance of unscheduled downtime could lead to a loss of data, or in a worst case scenario, to a complete disruption of production and services.

Serve customer needs online without interruption

One European vehicle manufacturer, who understands the importance of protection against downtime, has been using Marathon solutions since 2000. As their security needs as an organization have grown, so has their relationship with Marathon. They began by using the Endurance 4000 system to help protect their forklift management system. Three years later, they upgraded to everRun FT to further safeguard files and applications and to ensure continuous server availability.

The implementation of everRun FT gave the company the opportunity to undertake other IT projects to maximize efficiency and reliability. They were able to establish a centralized network to allow the entire staff to access all applications and system updates remotely.

Defend 24/7 operations with Marathon everRun FT software

With these new initiatives in place, one company executive says that it is now more important than ever for applications and servers to be accessible 24/7 – no matter what. “A disruption to the provision of data and applications would affect every employee, and in the worst case scenario, halt operations altogether,” said the executive.

The company uses both Marathon’s everRun FT and SplitSite to allow two servers to operate simultaneously in 100 percent lock-step. SplitSite provides an additional layer of protection against larger scale failures and disasters. This means that the two servers create a single virtual environment and if one fails, no downtime will occur and all software, applications and data will continue to run on the remaining server.

The organization utilizes several levels of security, including a single server, a Windows cluster, and a Marathon System, but all of their most important and mission-critical applications are operated on everRun FT.

Elimination of system failure and increased competitive advantage

Any instance of unscheduled downtime would impact not only the company’s main factory, but also their several hundred other outlets. If an employee was unable to connect to the network because the server was down, all data on customers and products would become unavailable – this could mean a stall on productivity and unhappy customers. The company executive maintains that this is no longer a concern, thanks to Marathon. “With everRun FT, we no longer have to worry about downtime.”

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?

“When we describe everRun VM to customers and prospects, the common reaction is ‘it’s too good to be true’” – Steve Keilen, VP of Marketing for Marathon Technologies

Today we made a Single Host Trial Edition of everRun VM available for prospects to download and test out. The trial edition allows users to experience everRun VM benefits – automated setup, configuration and management, intuitive interface and reliable VM protection – all within a matter of minutes.

By experiencing the simple “Click to Protect” power of everRun VM customers can:
• See how easy it is to protect a virtual machine in two minutes or less
• Put the protected VM through failure scenarios (including network and disk failures)
• Use online migration to move a running protected VM to another XenServer host

If you or your organization is in the market for fault-tolerant, high availability virtual server software, we encourage you to download the everRun VM Single Host Trial Edition. It comes with everything you need to get started, including an evaluation copy of XenServer Enterprise Edition. Feel free to leave a comment or contact us with any questions you may have.

With Microsoft’s Hyper-V announcement a few weeks back, the buzz around virtualization continues to rise. In this Network World podcast, our CTO Jerry Melnick discusses what Microsoft’s announcement means for the virtualization industry. Jerry believes that Microsoft’s moves will bring virtualization within reach of many companies who have been hesitant about adopting it before now – giving Microsoft the opportunity to swim in uncharted waters where VMware hasn’t been able to go.

The podcast also highlights Jerry’s take on the thriving virtualization industry and how the growing virtualization ecosystem is creating solutions that “fill in the blanks” e.g. everRun VM allows customers of all sizes to “consolidate with confidence” with reliable availability for virtual servers.

Do you think availability is a critical factor for a successful virtualization deployment?

We’re constantly getting questions regarding the what, when, where, why, and how Marathon can help CIOs expand the use of virtualization and availability in their IT infrastructures. Jack Germain of LinuxInsider chatted with Marathon’s CTO Jerry Melnick recently and asked him some of these same questions, which we have excerpted:

LinuxInsider: Numerous industry reports show that the rush to adopt server virtualization is run mostly by very large corporations with a large bank of servers. What part of the market is your company targeting? Are you following the big money trail?

Jerry Melnick: Our product is designed to work like a standard application taken off the shelf and installed right out of the box. Existing availability systems can cause more problems than they solve. Our system is different. That is precisely what midsized companies need.

LI: What barriers does everRun VM take down that you expect to drive a company’s need for what you offer?

Melnick: For one, there is a cost advantage over high-end proprietary products. On the other end, data replication solutions don’t provide all the functions needed. Replication is managing data only. The comprehensiveness of our solution is what makes it unique. The application is unchanged in our environment. In addition, our solution does not need lots of setup.

LI: What are you thinking about beyond the accomplishments of everRun VM as the next virtualization enhancement?

Melnick: Now we have taken the process to the next leap. What I mean is we can now take two servers with hardware virtualized and build a Xen server pool and manage it as a single entity. We can build a virtual machine in Windows by installing out software and give it an interface of all running servers. Our next vision is to have one mechanism to do availability with multiple uses. It will take six months to one year. This will add new levels of choices to select plug-ins for desired results. All of this will be possible through one product.

LI: How do you see this vision changing the industry?

Melnick: We’re breaking through limitations. We are in a position to expand use. Availability is something that everybody is talking about. We are providing ways of doing it.

For Germain’s complete article visit here.

From now through midnight Friday, June 13th, we want our readers to leave a comment on this post answering the question: What hurdles does/did your organization need to overcome in order to deploy a virtual environment?

By submitting a comment below and providing a valid email address for notification purposes, all participants who provide an answer to the above question will be placed into a drawing for a chance to win an 8GB iPod Touch. Participants are only allowed to enter once, but are always encouraged to join the ongoing conversations.

This less than scientific approach will help us further understand adoption hurdles organizations are experiencing when deploying virtual environments so that we can be sure our products are in line with end users needs.

And of course you can request a risk free trial of our everRun VM software and test drive it for yourself (be sure to check the box indicating your interest in a free product evaluation).

We were fortunate to attend the 2008 Citrix Synergy event last week, which the folks at Citrix did a great job hosting. For those that weren’t able to attend, make sure you check out the “underground community” they set up. You can see a video of Michael Bilancieri and Steve Keilen from Marathon, demonstrating everRun VM. Go to menu, browse on demand library, Synergy on-site video, and then scroll down towards the bottom and you’ll see Marathon Technologies everRun VM – Fault Tolerance for Citrix.

In addition, David Marshall recorded this brief podcast discussing how everRun enhances the functionality of Citrix XenServer.

As always, if you have any questions for us, feel free to leave a comment.

Over the past few weeks, Barry Flanagan has been discussing the upcoming Geek Speak BarCamp sessions at Citrix Synergy 2008. He has quite the agenda in store for attendees with twenty speaking slots filled – discussing application virtualization, desktop virtualization, server virtualization, application networking and a variety of other technologies.

For those interested in attending, Marathon’s director of products, Michael Bilancieri, will be leading a discussion at 7:20 p.m. Wednesday night on why virtualization increases the need for High Availability, and why you probably want multiple levels of protection depending on the importance of the applications. In addition, we will be showcasing everRun VM at booth #300 for those that want an up-close and personal look at how high availability software can prevent outages and data loss in Citrix XenServer virtual infrastructures.

Look forward to seeing you there!

Do you know what capacity of your server is currently being utilized by your organization? No? Well you should. If you can recognize where the gaps in your current server environments are, then it’s easier to analyze the potential savings and opportunities for deploying green technology.

Each year on average an organizations data center only outputs 10-15% of its total processing capacity. By deploying a virtualization strategy, organizations can raise their hardware use to 70-80% resulting in a much more efficient use of corporate capital.

We’ve seen for quite some time now that executives are still iffy on whether or not to deploy a virtualization strategy. For the most part they understand the benefits: reducing energy expenditures, consolidating physical server space, decreasing their environmental footprint, etc. What seem to be the common causes for concern are the effects suffered during the deployment – fear of data loss and the possibility of downtime.

If VARs introduce their customers to high availability technology, such as everRun VM, and offer it alongside their virtualization solutions, then customers will increase their willingness to virtualize their applications – knowing they will be protected from downtime and data loss.

This week, Steve Keilen, VP of Marketing for Marathon, discussed the green side of everRun with eWeek Channel Insider and how it has aided VARs.

What green strategies does your organization currently have in place to maximize productivity and cut energy costs?

A common question we get from analysts and something that continues to come up in discussions (see Brian Madden’s blog) is why we developed everRun VM for XenSource and not VMware. One of the biggest obstacles in developing a version of our software for protecting virtual environments was making a strategic decision on which hypervisor platform to develop for initially. Some of the key factors that weighed in on our decision were:

• Virtualization platform market share
• Robustness of the virtualization platform
• Performance of the virtualization platform
• Openness of the architecture
• Virtualization vendor’s approach to partnerships
• Compatibility with future Microsoft virtualization platforms

Although VMware was the clear market leader, for most of the criteria, XenSource (now Citrix Virtualization and Management Division) was a much better fit. To acheive the superior availability that everRun VM uniquely provides, it had to be tightly integrated with the hypervisor, the openness of the architecture was very important. And since our solution would be directed at virtualizing applications that weren’t being virtualized yet, in part due to concerns about their performance in virtual machines, the near “bare-metal” performance of XenServer was also a major advantage. XenSource’s philosophy of growing through an ecosystem of technology partners gave us the confidence that they would get the technical, management and marketing support required to achieve our time-to-market objectives. Finally, because of the company’s relationship with Microsoft and the planned interoperability between the XenServer platform and Microsoft’s Hyper-V, we are confident that developing for XenServer now would provide the shortest path to supporting Microsoft Hyper-V when it becomes available.

If you have any additional questions feel free to leave us a comment.