Boxborough, Massachusetts-based Marathon Technologies Group has hitched itself to UK systems integrator, Morse Group to leverage its flagship Endurance 4000 Windows NT fault tolerance enhancement tool to non-Hewlett-Packard users in the UK. Endurance 4000 has been included as standard on many HP server shipments since it was launched in the US 18 months ago but the deal with Morse will push the product to Windows NT users with non-HP servers such as Compaq or IBM.
Endurance 2000 has an installed based of 500 users in the US. The hardware and software product allows users to boost the native availability of Windows NT by clustering servers together. If one of the servers goes down another one will cut in to ensure uninterrupted service.
Marathon claims that the product boosts Windows NT from its out-of-the-box 99.9% availability – which translates into 8 or 9 hours unexpected downtime a year – to the so-called five-nines availability or 99.999% giving only 5 minutes annual downtime.
The product will retail at $40,000 in the UK with a premium for users claiming insurance against less than five-nines availability. Morse anticipates sales volume of up to 20 major orders within four months and will pitch Endurance at financial institutions for which fault tolerance computing is at a premium.
