Fault Tolerance for Windows/NT

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In this issue...
  • Feature: Webinar on Fault Tolerance for Windows/NT
  • Spotlight: Who Can Use Marathon FT Servers?
  • Key Interviews: Talking about FT with Key’s Julie Giersbach
  • Key Factoids: Liberate your Enterprise, Sarbanes-Oxley, IBM's Annual Report
  • Announced by Key: Technical Blueprint Service, Discounts on IBM Education
  • New Offering by Key: Key and Novacoast Migrate Windows to Linux
  • Webinar in Review: Storage Consolidation & Data Protection
  • KEY Definition: Term of the Month
  • Useful Links

    • Feature :.

    Webinar on Fault Tolerance for Windows/NT

    New affordable FT solution offers greater protection.

    Key and Marathon Technologies are addressing the need for fault tolerant solutions to provide maximum protection for critical applications in a Windows/NT environment. The result is increased business continuity and elimination of problems normally associated with failover from one compromised paired-server to a second synchronized server.

    Key’s next webinar in the Key Free University series (see announcement to right) on April 6th explores industry trends driving users to look beyond the assurances offered by high availability (HA) solutions to the greater benefits of fault tolerant (FT) solutions providing fail-safe protection of mission critical applications.

    Click Here to Read More

    Spotlight:.

    Who Can Use Marathon FT Servers?

    Marathon’s Endurance Virtual FTserver™ can be used on configurations running Windows 2000, Windows 2003 or Windows NT. The minimum server configuration required is:

    Two identically-configured Intel-based and synchronized paired-servers, each with:
  • 1.5 GHz Pentium 4 Xeon Dual Processors
  • 512 MB RAM
  • 2 logical disks
  • 4 network ports
  • 1 SCSI Host-based Adapter for RAID Controller
  • 1 CD-ROM
    • The Marathon solution follows totally open protocols. There is no proprietary hardware, no changes to Windows and no changes to applications.

    Key Interview:.

    Talking about FT with Key’s Julie Giersbach

    We interviewed Julie Giersbach, 5-year Account Executive with Key Information Systems trained in business continuity solutions. “We’ve seen a flurry of interest among our customers in Marathon’s Endurance Virtual FTserver. This has given me numerous opportunities to discuss business continuity needs with our customers running their mission critical apps in a Windows server environment,” said Julie.

    Click Here to Read More

    Key Factoids:.

    Liberate your Enterprise

    ExchangeLiberator™ does just what it says: it liberates your enterprise from MS Exchange. Although you can dump Exchange, you don’t have to. ExchangeLiberator™ protects the investment on your desktop. Continue using MS Outlook for your mail, calendaring, and contacts on Windows, or use Ximian's Evolution on Linux clients for the same functionality, the same look-and-feel, but freed from recurring license fees.

    Sarbanes-Oxley Deadline Delayed

    The U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC) has delayed the dates for U.S. companies to comply with the Sarbanes-Oxley Act (SOX) deadlines for financial reporting. Accelerated filers, companies with equity market capitalization over $75 million which have filed at least one annual report with the SEC, must begin to comply with the new amendments for their first fiscal year ending on or after Nov. 15, 2004 … instead of June 15, 2004. Non-accelerated filers must begin to comply with these requirements for their first fiscal year ending on or after July 15, 2005 instead of April 15, 2005. All filers’ annual financial filings must include a report by management on their internal control over financial reporting and an accompanying auditor's report.


    A few tidbits from the IBM's annual report:
  • In 2003, hardware accounted for 32 percent of IBM's revenue, while services accounted for 48 percent. That's a big change from 1999, when hardware brought in 40 percent of IBM's revenue and services accounted for 39 percent.
  • IBM saw double-digit growth and revenue of $3 billion last year in China, India, Russia, and Brazil.
  • IBM's revenue from the small and medium business (SMB) sector grew 14 percent last year.
  • Linux revenue grew 50 percent last year to more than $2 billion.
  • IBM was awarded 3,415 U.S. patents last year, breaking its own record for patents awarded in a single year and bringing total IBM patents awarded in the past 11 years to more than 25,000.

    • Announced by KEY:.

    Technical Blueprint Service

    During Key’s March 9 Webinar on Storage Consolidation and Data Protection, Pete Elliot, Key’s Director of Marketing, announced a new Technical Blueprint Service available from Key’s technical specialists. The service involves a data collection phase and a reporting phase for strategic IT areas. Blueprints of technical areas are used as a reference to place all recommendations within the context of proven and reliable alternative actions. Initial availability of this service will be for determining the potential value of using a SAN Filer. Other versions will be available for migration to Linux and for improving availability. For more information on this new service, contact Pete Elliot at pelliot@keyinfo.com.

    Discounts on IBM Education

    You can buy your next IBM Education Pack from key and save from 5 to 20 percent. IBM Education Pack - online is an improved offering that Key is now providing along with assistance in planning how best to take advantage of this program. An online account replaces the coupons of the past, ensuring that every dollar invested goes towards education. For more information, contact Paul Johansen at Key: 800.929.9514 or send Paul an email to: pjohansen@keyinfo.com.

    New Offering by Key:.

    Key and Novacoast Migrate Windows to Linux

    ExchangeLiberator™ is a combination of software, hardware and services carefully bundled by Key and Santa Barbara, California-based Novacoast to safely migrate servers with Windows applications to a more secure Novell SuSE Linux environment. ExchangeLiberator™ uses an open architecture that combines IBM’s blade series, open source software from Novell, and a variety of open source application components available from the Internet. The modular architecture is built on paired servers from IBM. Layered onto the processors are the operating system (users choose between Ximian on a Linux desktop or Microsoft Windows), directory services, and groupware from Novell. An application layer on top includes the desktop environment, groupware clients, and integrated office applications. Groupware clients include MS Outlook, Evolution, and the Novell GroupWise client. Office tools can be either OpenOffice running under Linux or Windows, or MS Office running under Windows. For more specifications, click here. To see the architecture, click here.

    March Webinar:.

    Storage Consolidation and Data Protection

    Our main speaker at the March 9 Key Webinar was Peter Tarrant, VP of Marketing at ONStor, a supplier of highly scalable solutions that consolidate enterprise-wide file storage onto multi-vendor SANs. Peter has over 21 years of data communications and storage experience, and has held senior management positions at Brocade Communications, Bay Networks and SynOptics.

    Click Here to Read More

    KEY Definitions:.

    >From www.techweb.com/encyclopedia

    Windows NT Workstation
    Microsoft says that 32-bit applications run 20% faster on this system than on Windows 95 (assuming both have 32 megabytes of RAM). Since older 16-bit applications run in a separate address space, one can crash without crashing other applications or the operating system. Security and management features not available on Windows 95 are provided. The Workstation has the same desktop user interface as Windows 95.

    Useful Links

    List of IBM TotalStorage Solution Center sites: www.storage.ibm.com/tssc/index.html

    Link to Key's listing as a TSSC is at: http://www.storage.ibm.com/tssc/usa/key.html

    About the IBM Storage Software Family: www.storage.ibm.com/software

    Reader Feedback:.

    We value your comments. Please send your ideas and suggested topics to: pelliot@keyinfo.com.

    Key Information Systems, Inc., (www.keyinfo.com) a Premier Business Partner with IBM, is a systems integration company located at 22120 Clarendon St., Suite 100, Woodland Hills, CA 91367, USA. Founded in 1995, the company provides corporate infrastructure architecture for business continuity, storage, and e-business solutions. Key Information Systems is a leading provider of IBM server solutions for the iSeries, AIX (UNIX), NT, and Linux platforms and has distinguished itself by extending its high availability infrastructure solutions to the Internet economy. The company delivers a complete range of professional services including education, maintenance, and IBM Global Financing. For more information, please visit the company online or call 1-877-442-3249.

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