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Press release: Pitney Bowes Delivers High-Volume Mailing Systems to Client Sites on Stratus Technologies' ftServer Systems

Delivering for high-volume mail customers with Stratus^® ftServer^® system

What happens if enterprises can't produce important mailings - such as account statements and monthly invoices - on time? Late invoices can interfere with an enterprise's cash flow. Delayed account statements can hurt customer service. Also, production mail departments often must meet committed service level agreements (SLAs), or risk steep financial penalties and forfeit bonus compensation.

Fortunately many large organizations are able to effectively banish such worries. Their production mail operations instead focus on saving time, reducing costs, increasing quality, and benefiting from one-to-one messaging. They count on Pitney Bowes Inc., the world's leading provider of integrated mail and document management solutions. Based in Stamford, Conn. the $4.4 billion company makes business communications more efficient and effective with its diverse range of products and services.

One of Pitney Bowes' offerings is the Direct ConnectT Inserter Control System, which enables enterprises to monitor control, and customize each piece in high-volume mailings. The system controls the insertion of mail pieces into envelopes, completing the final step in a process that must always meet a hard deadline. Turnaround time is a matter of hours. Moreover, processing must be able to run non-stop throughout the production cycle.

So when Pitney Bowes decided to migrate its Direct Connect software to a Microsoft^® Windows^® environment, Stratus^® ftServer^® systems were chosen to deliver what the company and its clients need.

"Recognize that we're in the business of delivering end-to-end document messaging solutions -not components - and the server is one of many integral components to our overall suite of solutions," says Gene Pritchard, director, systems integration and support at Pitney Bowes' Document Messaging Technologies unit. "Therefore, it is absolutely imperative that we deploy proven component technology throughout our suite of solutions."

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Windows^® operating system gets stamp of approval

Developed, integrated, and supported by Pitney Bowes, the Direct Connect application usually serves as part of a sophisticated mailing solution that operates at clients' premises. This software platform not only controls the real-time operation of mail insertion equipment, but also handles the processing that reconciles job specifications against actual results, regenerates missing mail pieces, and prints personalized messages on each envelope. Satisfied clients include banks, financial services firms, insurance companies, state agencies, and direct mailers.

The Direct Connect software originally ran on Novell^®  NetWare SFT IIIT  servers. "The NetWare SFT III servers worked well when they were properly configured, but correctly configuring them required expertise that most people didn't have," says Eric Howard, infrastructure specialist at Pitney Bowes.

As a result, clients' IT organizations were becoming interested in a Windows operating system base that would be familiar to their personnel. This prompted Pitney Bowes' technical team to thoroughly evaluate different server platforms to run the application.

High-availability server clusters looked appealing at first. Clusters consist of two or more servers and add-on middleware that permits switchover when there is a problem. This failover transfers processing from the affected server node to another server in the cluster. A big drawback, however is that downtime is guaranteed while recovery is not. For the Direct Connect application, the interruption in processing is unacceptable. Because of their fault-tolerant architecture and built-in redundancy, ftServer systems experience zero failover time if a hardware problem arises.

Direct
Dual requirements for uninterrupted processing and a Windows base led the Pitney Bowes team to Stratus Technologies.  Although not on the market when Direct Connect software was originally developed, the Stratus ftServer series now offered an alternative: an industrystandard fault-tolerant family of Intel^® processor-based servers for Windows environments.

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Highest reliability, least maintenance

Engineered for 99.999% and greater uptime, ftServer systems transparently bring the protection of fault-tolerant computing to applications that use Windows server operating systems. Applications need not be modified to take advantage of the servers' Continuous Processing^®  features. In contrast with clusters, ensuring reliability involves neither special configuration and testing nor labor-intensive administration.

Built-in robustness provides a major advantage because the Direct Connect system must perform with little or no IT attention at the sites where it is installed. Pritchard comments, "Simply put, the proven ability to perform flawlessly is the reason that we choose Stratus as our preferred server platform, as the server technology and support infrastructure are second to none."

Clients must also protect the security and privacy of their customers' account information. Because of these concerns, it is not viable to remotely monitor the status of Direct Connect systems.

The ftServer line features Stratus ActiveServiceT capabilities ideal for these circumstances. First, ftServer systems constantly monitor their own operation. If trouble is detected, processing continues uninterrupted while the server isolates the condition and automatically opens a call telling the Stratus Customer Assistance Center (CAC) exactly what action to take. Security is preserved because the servers initiate and deposit the call over a secure, dialed connection. (Unlike most other ftServer installations, remote access for service purposes is not enabled.)

The Stratus CAC alerts the Pitney Bowes support team so that a customer service representative can respond appropriately. These proactive alerts are important for short-term problem resolution, in addition to preventing abnormal conditions from mushrooming into downtime. "Having the CAC available is huge," observes Howard. "Techs from Stratus will walk through problem resolution with customer service representatives who are on site. The CAC always goes the extra mile to help, even when it's not their problem."

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Trusty messenger

Pitney Bowes has installed eight Stratus ftServer systems - different models spanning a range of processing power - at customer sites so far. The deployments have been similar to installing any other standard Windows server.

From the clients' point of view, not having to think about reliability is optimal. Direct Connect clients simply want to produce the most accurate, timely mail communications at the lowest cost possible. Trusted ftServer systems support that goal.

"Other companies out there don't have this kind of real-time, high-availability solution. Others may claim similarities, but there's nothing as robust as ftServer systems in terms of uptime and service," Howard comments.

He concludes, "From a business perspective, choosing the ftServer systems is one of the smartest things we've done."

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