White Papers

Server Virtualization and Cloud Computing: Four Hidden Impacts on Uptime and Availability (PDF, 188K)
Cloud computing allows companies to use IT resources as a service, taking advantage of shared applications, processing and storage managed within the cloud. Greater robustness of the virtualized servers supporting this new IT model will ensure a resilient cloud infrastructure capable of delivering “on-demand” access to users.

Fault Tolerance in a Virtual World - How common use cases raise your Criticality Quotient
(PDF, 405K) As server virtualization goes mainstream, the workloads of virtual machines are taking on mission-critical proportions. This paper looks at five use cases to show why, where and how your business can reduce risk in your virtualization initiative by hardening your IT environment with physical servers that ensure reliability and availability.

Server Virtualization: Do's and Don'ts for Mission-Critical Manufacturing Systems (PDF, 345K) This paper offers best practices you can use to benefit from server virtualization today, while avoiding mistakes that could affect the availability and performance of mission-critical manufacturing IT.

Best Practices for Server Virtualization in Mission-Critical Healthcare IT (PDF, 481K) -This paper provides an introduction to server virtualization for hospitals and healthcare delivery organizations. It also offers best practices you can use to benefit from virtualization, while avoiding missteps that could affect the availability and performance of mission-critical healthcare IT.

Seven Virtues of Virtualization: Avoiding Deadly Mistakes that Doom Business-Critical Service Management (PDF, 82K) The stakes are high when you virtualize business-critical IT services.  Explore the role that proper project planning and management play in keeping these initiatives on track.

Position Papers

Ensure Mission-Critical Service Levels in VMware vSphere Environments (PDF, 208K) Continuous, high or "on -demand" availability — the choice is yours. The coupling of two industry-leading technologies — VMware vSphere and Stratus ftServer systems — gives IT managers a flexible, robust solution that delivers mission-critical SLAs along with the full benefits of virtualization.

VMware Infrastructure 3 and Stratus Servers: A Manufacturing Industry Guide to Maximizing Application Uptime and Minimizing Lifecycle Management Costs (PDF, 169K) This paper details nine ways the combination of VMware Infrastructure 3 (VI3) virtualization and Stratus fault-tolerant ftServer systems work together to better address challenges that range from hardware and software failures, to ongoing maintenance and upgrades, to disaster recovery
and business continuity.

Customer Testimonals/Case Studies

Elavon, Inc., (PDF, 92K) provides integrated payment processing services to merchants and financial institutions in the United States, Canada and Europe. Their payment products include; credit and debit card processing, electronic check services, gift cards, dynamic currency conversion, multi-currency support, and cross-border acquiring.  When Elavon was looking to take advantage of VMware virtualization technologies, they were concerned about availability.  They looked to Stratus Technologies to meet these needs.

Westpac Institutional Bank  Westpac Institutional Bank manages the financial needs of corporate, institutional and government clients with interests in Australia and New Zealand. Exceeding customer expectations is at the core of its mission, as it is with each division of
the Westpac Group, Australia’s oldest financial institution and a top-five listed company on the Australian Securities Exchange Limited.

Columbia Memorial Hospital The hospital found its answer in a turnkey solution: CCHIT Certified ambulatory EHR software, Medical Grade servers and storage from Stratus Technologies, and virtualization software from VMware.

Collateral

e-Book: 5 Questions to Ask About Server Virtualization and High Availability (PDF, 476 KB) New concerns arise as IT executives look at the next wave of applications in the queue for virtualization. If you or your business is among those evaluating ROI and the risks associated with virtualizing your production applications, this five-chapter ebook offers some practical advice.

Download the Virtualization Buying Guide (PDF, 345K) Ensuring business continuity and availability for data centers, distributed remote locations and SMBs. Look to Stratus for solutions that allow you to fully benefit from virtualization — without the risks of increased complexity, unplanned downtime and loss of business critical data.

Stratus and VMware Bring Continuous Availability to VMware Virtualization (PDF, 248K) Learn how the combination of Stratus servers and VMware® vSphere suite, addresses the full
spectrum of availability challenges including, hardware and software failures as well a planned downtime.

Podcasts & MultiMedia

Successfully Matching Virtualization with Availability: Industry analyst and pundit Dan Kusnetzky, says IT management must give greater attention and analysis to assessing application availability requirements in a virtualized world before the correct solution can be chosen.

Burton Group's Chris Wolf on Virtualization 2009 (part 1): Invest in virtualization technology when every penny spent is scrutinized? A "no-brainer" says Chris Wolf.

Burton Group's Chris Wolf on Virtualization 2009 (part 2): A virtualization strategy without availability is no strategy at all. Chris Wolf explains.

A Different Perspective on Virtualization: See how virtualization is like putting all your eggs in one basket in this short video.

Flash Presentation: Virtualization meets Fault Tolerance - Raising the Hardware Bar