Victims of Success: VARs Must Go Beyond Basic Virtualization

Marathon Technologies' everRun software delivers a unique twist on virtualization by eliminating outages or downtime in Microsoft Windows applications.  EverRun VM works in both physical and virtual environments by synchronizing two standard Windows servers including the operating system, applications, network interfaces, storage and data, according to Marathon.  EverRun creates a single environment that operates like a standalone server and automates fault management so applications on that server don't see the failures if they occur, according to the company.

Marathon takes a greener approach to virtualization

Steve Keilen, vice president of marketing for Marathon, says eliminating downtime for mission-critical Windows applications lets solution providers offer a greater level of virtualization than was possible just a few months ago.  Boosting server virtualization capability makes the software a great fit for VARs whose customers want to go green by further reducing energy use, consolidating into a smaller space and reducing their environmental footprint, he says.

"Now, VARs can take applications that customers traditionally haven't virtualized, like Exchange Server and SQL Server, for instance, and actually virtualize and consolidate these mission-critical functions," says Keilen.  Previously, most VARs' customers weren't willing to virtualize applications like Exchange for fear of data loss or downtime, preferring to leave those applications on a dedicated physical server, he adds.

With the introduction of everRun VM, Keilen says VARs can promise their customers that mission-critical e-mail and other server functions will remain available, whereas six to nine months ago, applications like Exchange weren't considered a good candidate for virtualization.