Monday March 29, 8:02 am Eastern Time
Company Press Release
Two New Unisys High-Availability Programs Bring Mainframe-Class Reliability to Intel-Based Windows NT Servers
BLUE BELL, Pa.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 29, 1999--Unisys Corp. today announced two programs for bringing the high levels of reliability and support previously available only for mainframes to servers based on Intel and Microsoft technology: High Availability Support for Microsoft Business Systems backed by a custom agreement with Microsoft and high-availability packages featuring a hardware guarantee offering by Unisys for its Windows NT servers.
The Unisys High Availability Support program offers top-priority, mainframe-class response to worldwide customers whose businesses depend on high system availability. This program represents an important step forward for Unisys in its initiative to offer enterprise-capable solutions on Intel-based servers running under the Windows NT operating environment.
Under the agreement, Unisys support personnel have direct and priority access to the highest levels of Microsoft's support professionals, allowing Unisys to provide an immediate, proactive response to problems judged to have a mission-critical impact on a client's business.
Problems are escalated to Microsoft after having been analyzed and determined to be related to Microsoft Business Systems software, rather than to hardware or other software components. This enables Unisys to provide worldwide support for Microsoft solutions 24 hours a day, 365 days a year.
High Availability Support for Microsoft Business Systems covers Windows NT Server, SQL Server 7, Exchange Server, Internet Information Server and other Microsoft Business Systems products running on Aquanta ES5000 servers as well as the Intel-based nodes of Unisys ClearPath HMP (Heterogeneous Multiprocessing) servers.
Unisys has established a support center staffed by Microsoft certified personnel, including Microsoft Certified Systems Engineers and Microsoft Certified Solution Developers, who have privileged access to comprehensive Microsoft support information. This includes ''hotfixes'' and analyses of earlier incidents.
With the most up-to-date support information available from Microsoft, Unisys is able to provide the most comprehensive support to its customers.
''It takes special skills and lots of experience to know how to deliver this kind of support,'' said Mark Perry, general manager of Product Support Services, Microsoft Corp. ''It also takes significant resources: administrative systems, people, equipment, support processes and quality control. The Unisys global support infrastructure has been built around the need to respond quickly to the most urgent of support requirements in large enterprises. Those resources and experience position Unisys to make this high level of support work well for our mutual customers.''
High Availability Support for Microsoft Business Systems is an option on selected levels of premium Unisys software support packages for Unisys servers. It is available immediately.
The Unisys high-availability guarantee program
Unisys also announced high-availability packages for Microsoft Windows NT-based servers backed by a guarantee that users will experience no more than one unplanned hardware stop per year. This is the only guarantee offering of its kind that covers both single and clustered servers.
In addition, it is the only guarantee program in the industry that does not require a premium hardware support package, which all users do not necessarily need. Hardware support, as well as High Availability Support for Microsoft Business Systems, is available as an option.
The Unisys guarantee program is more flexible and priced substantially lower than competing high-availability programs. In addition, the Unisys guarantee program will cover customers in any geographic location and is not limited only to those sites, typically within 50 miles of a vendor's major support center, covered by premium support contracts.
High-availability packages for Unisys Aquanta ES5000 servers include components selected for their proven ability to minimize system failure, including ECC memory, RAID (redundant array of independent disk) storage, redundant network interface cards and redundant power and cooling, eliminating single points of failure.
The packages also include hot-swap components and remote diagnostics and operations to further boost availability. These configuration components are on the Microsoft Windows NT Hardware Compatibility List.
A Unisys high-availability package including a three-year high-availability guarantee can be based on a four-way Aquanta ES5000 server or on a clustered configuration consisting of two four-way systems, a shared OSM3000 RAID storage subsystem and cluster implementation services.
If the customer experiences more than one system failure within a twelve-month period, the guarantee offering provides a credit toward the purchase of Unisys equipment or services: $1,000 for single systems, and $5,000 for clustered systems.
''Windows NT, with its latest Service Pack 4 enhancements, now provides a solid foundation for high availability. These improvements, combined with guaranteed Unisys hardware packages backed by High Availability Support for Microsoft Business Systems and our global services infrastructure, provide all of the elements needed to run mission-critical solutions on Windows NT,'' said Don Johnson, vice president and general manager, Aquanta Enterprise Server Business, Unisys Computer Systems. ''Ensuring uninterrupted server availability is table stakes for doing business with customers in traditional Unisys markets such as financial services, transportation, government and telecommunications. We routinely rise to the industry's most demanding expectations, so it's easier for us to design and configure Intel-based systems that can support such a guarantee offering.''
Unisys servers are backed by a worldwide maintenance and support infrastructure designed to offer fast-response support services for high-availability environments. Unisys NetWORKS service supports high system availability through 7x24 remote systems preventative diagnostics, monitoring and management.
Unisys is also positioned to provide the highest levels of Windows NT application availability through information services offerings that include application planning, deployment services, cluster set up and installation, architectural consulting and benchmarking.
To simplify the evaluation of Windows NT for high-availability applications, Unisys has developed a web-based Application Availability Calculator, which can be accessed at marketplace.unisys.com.
About Unisys
Unisys (NYSE:UIS - news) is more than 33,000 employees helping customers in 100 countries apply information technology to solve their business problems.
Unisys solutions are based on a broad portfolio of global information services including systems integration, outsourcing, ''repeatable'' application solutions, consulting, network integration, remote network management, and multivendor maintenance and support, coupled with enterprise-class servers and associated middleware, software and storage.
Repeatable solutions are focused on key vertical markets including financial services, transportation, telecommunications, government, publishing and other commercial markets. Headquartered in Blue Bell, Pennsylvania, in the Greater Philadelphia area, Unisys had 1998 annual revenue of $7.2 billion. Access the Unisys home page on the World Wide Web - unisys.com - for further information.
Unisys is a registered trademark of Unisys Corporation. All other brands and products referenced herein are acknowledged to be trademarks or registered trademarks of their respective holders.
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Contact:
Unisys, Blue Bell
Steve Holzman, 215/986-5098
Internet: stephen.holzman@unisys.com |
