This week is a big week for us. Yesterday we announced that have completed a distribution agreement with Citrix’s largest distributor in the UK, IQ Sys. In November IQ Sys was awarded “Best Citrix Distributor for UK, Ireland and SA”. Put that together with our “Best of VMworld - New Technology ” high availability software for server virtualization, everRun, and we are looking at the introduction of the UK’s first protected desktop-to-datacenter virtualization solution that is “streets ahead of anything offered by other vendors,” as stated by David Turner, vendor development manager for IQ Sys.

In addition, today we announced that so far this year we have secured over 100 new partners around the globe with our v-Available Channel Partner Program. The program is a key component of our broader v-Available initiative designed to provide companies of all sizes with an effective high availability solution for server virtualization.

With this week’s news, it is clear that our goal , to help organizations eliminate one of the big barriers to adopting server virtualization – the lack of real high availability software for virtual servers, is also shared by leaders in the IT channel.

Check out here if you want more information on our partner program

Yesterday Network World released their “10 Virtualization companies to watch” list and we are pleased to say that yours truly has made the list. We were awarded the distinction for v-Available, the first-of-its-kind initiative, bringing fault tolerant-class availability to virtual environments.

This story validates much of the hard work that goes on here at Marathon and reflects the advancements we have made over the last few months; announcing several strategic partnerships including one with the leader in infrastructure virtualization solutions, XenSource. We encourage you to follow our lead moving forward and observe as we continue to develop solutions that provide companies of all sizes simple, reliable protection for critical virtual workloads.

Today is a big day for us as we announced our v-Available initiative, certification program and XenSource Partnership. The announcements are the first of our virtualization roll out and we are excited about the benefits we are bringing to businesses large and small. In a nutshell:

• v-Available bridges the current gap between virtualization and availability – It is an initiative that is the first of its kind, bringing Fault Tolerant (FT) class availability to virtual environments
• Marathon’s everRun software integrated with XenEnterprise is the best combination of price/performance, ease of use, & FT-class availability protecting virtual workloads
• v-Available eliminates the complexity of availability for virtualized environments

As we stated in the release, we believe our v-Available initiative will remove one of the most significant barriers preventing greater proliferation of server virtualization, especially as it relates to the mid-market. IT Administrators looking to consolidate servers and reduce costs now have the added assurance that applications will remain up and running in virtual environments. However, these announcements are just the beginning of our virtualization push. Throughout the rest of the year you will see the collaboration between two companies, Marathon & XenSource, as we deliver a series of products which will encourage and provide a safety net for businesses (large and small) adopting virtualization.

If you would like to learn more about this program leave a comment here and we will be happy to answer your questions. In addition, we had the privilege to speak with a few folks over the past couple weeks about our plans and will post their thoughts here when they are made available.

Related Links

Marathon Technologies Brings High Availability to XenSource - eWeek
Conversation with Marathon Technology - Dan Kusnetzky, ZDNet
Marathon Makes Virtualization Fault Tolerant with v-Available - ITJungle