netConsult Selects SteelEye LifeKeeper for Disaster Recovery Clustering of Exchange, Oracle 9i and SQL Server Trading Systems
Mountain View, California; London, England – 1st June 2004 – SteelEye Technology, Inc ( www.steeleye.com
“Due to the real-time, high-value nature of our client”s business, any kind of failure in their mission critical systems, which in turn prevents them from completing timely trades, can have significant impact upon their business, in terms of the profitability of transactions and the confidence of their investment clients,” said Richard McDonald principal and founder of netConsult. “SteelEye LifeKeeper is one of four disaster recovery software solutions we researched on behalf of our client. The deciding factors in favour of LifeKeeper were that: it was the only truly complete, automated solution for disaster recovery; it was the only product that was capable of being demonstrated out of the box; and it was by far the most reasonably priced given the complexity of our client”s environment, including the need to cluster a heterogeneous mix of storage and servers.”
“Coupled with overall heightened security concerns, it became imperative for our client to implement a comprehensive solution for business continuity that could function reliably and efficiently, regardless of the scale of interruption, from a simple server failure to a disaster requiring complete site recovery,” McDonald added. “In addition to the assurance of disaster recovery protection, our client has benefited greatly from the overall increase in server and application availability that the LifeKeeper clustering solution has made possible.”
LifeKeeper is being used to ensure complete disaster recovery protection of netConsult”s client”s core, business-critical trading systems that include: Calypso®, a currency trading system based on Oracle 9i from Calypso Technology; Tradar Portfolio, also a currency trading system based on Microsoft® SQL Server from Tradar Limited; and Microsoft Exchange Server, a messaging and collaboration platform being used for internal communication and confirmation of trading orders. The SteelEye LifeKeeper solution provides automated monitoring, failover and failback of these systems, coupled with integrated disk-level data replication between the customer”s primary business location in the heart of London, and its managed recovery site some distance outside of London, operated by Sungard® Data Systems.
SteelEye LifeKeeper is installed on eight servers in a geographically dispersed, heterogeneous stretch-cluster configuration of four server pairs, all running the Windows® 2000 operating system – four HP ProLiant BL20p G2 blade servers, accessing Hitachi Thunder® 9500 V Series modular storage at the primary location, individually clustered over a wide-area network with four HP ProLiant DL380 G2 and DL380 G3 servers, accessing HP MSA1000 storage at the recovery site. Each of the server pairs provide individual high availability protection for the Calypso, Tradar and Exchange systems respectively, and the fourth server pair ensures high availability of file and print services. The integrated, disk-level data replication capabilities within LifeKeeper enable the continuous synchronization of the server pairs, and thereby the creation of a stretch-cluster configuration to support disaster recovery over a wide area network.
netConsult”s client purchased the SteelEye LifeKeeper solution from Open Minds ( www.openminds.co.uk
McDonald went on to say, “LifeKeeper proved to be a hands-off solution that was easy to implement in an environment known for its complexities. Since going live we have experienced several server outages involving our client”s Oracle and SQL Server systems which LifeKeeper handled so well that no interruption or change in level of service was noticed by any users.”
In addition to the benefit of complete disaster recovery protection, the LifeKeeper solution has proved to be very useful during systems maintenance. Whereas previously it was necessary to undertake the manual and time-consuming process of configuring and manually migrating users to backup systems, with LifeKeeper, production systems and user connectivity can be automatically failed over to the recovery location while maintenance is applied to the primary server. Once this task is complete, systems and users are failed back in a similar automated fashion.
“The support we have received from the SteelEye technical team during and after implementation has been excellent,” McDonald concluded. “The deployment of disaster recovery solutions for environments like Exchange and Oracle is no simple task, and SteelEye continues to demonstrate a broad range of experience and knowledge, which we value greatly.”
“We are excited by the selection of our SteelEye LifeKeeper Disaster Recovery solution by netConsult, a very well-respected financial services IT consultancy,” said John Banfield, European sales director for SteelEye. “The ability of the LifeKeeper solution to address their client”s critical business requirements and technical complexity is a strong validation of our approach, and solid proof that LifeKeeper delivers industrial-strength assurance of continuity in the most demanding of environments.”
About SteelEye Technology
SteelEye is a leading provider of enterprise IT reliability solutions for business continuity and disaster recovery on Windows and Linux platforms.
The SteelEye LifeKeeper family of application-centric data replication, high availability clustering, and disaster recovery solutions are easy to deploy and operate, and enable enterprises of all sizes to ensure continuous availability of business-critical applications, servers and data.
To complement its software solutions, SteelEye also provides a full range of high availability consulting and professional services to assist organizations with the assessment, design and implementation of solutions for ensuring High Availability within their environments.
SteelEye products and services are available worldwide, and may be purchased directly from SteelEye or through its international network of reseller and systems integration partners. For more information, please visit www.steeleye.com
About SteelEye LifeKeeper
SteelEye LifeKeeper is the only business continuity solution on Windows and Linux platforms to provide data replication, high availability clustering and wide-area automated disaster recovery, in a single, scalable, affordable solution.
SteelEye LifeKeeper offers enterprise-grade reliability while simplifying implementation with certified support for a wide range of applications, databases, servers and storage options in Windows and Linux environments, including mySAP® Business Suite, Oracle®, DB2®, Microsoft® SQL Server, Microsoft Exchange and WebCT.
A key benefit of the SteelEye LifeKeeper solution-set is the capacity to implement “scalable availability” – enabling organizations to implement an application-centric solution that meets their availability requirements today, while providing an integrated path to evolve as business, operational and application requirements change over time.
About the SteelEye and Microsoft Relationship
SteelEye is a Microsoft Certified Partner and a member of the Microsoft Developer Network. SteelEye participates in these programs to ensure the compatibility of SteelEye products and services with the Microsoft Windows environment, Microsoft solutions including Exchange Server, SQL Server and IIS, and Microsoft best practices.
To join the Microsoft Certified Partner program SteelEye LifeKeeper products are required to undergo independent verification testing. SteelEye LifeKeeper Data Replication is officially confirmed by Veritest, a worldwide test and verification partner of Microsoft, to be verified for Windows 2003.
In addition, the Microsoft Certified Partner status indicates that SteelEye has Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers (MCSEs) on staff. At SteelEye these individuals work in all technical areas of our business, including Engineering, Quality Assurance, Technical Support and Consulting Services