Stratus Technologies is offering a $50,000 guarantee that customers of its fault-tolerant servers will suffer no unplanned downtime with VMware vSphere 4 server virtualization software within six months of installation.
The new Zero Downtime $50K Guarantee program, which is open to customers who deploy the two products together before December 31, is aimed at getting customers to try the company's fault-tolerant servers in virtualized environments, said Eric Dougherty, vice president of channel sales for the Maynard, Mass.-based vendor.
Stratus offered a similar $50,000 guarantee on its fault-tolerant servers in the past, but this is the first time it has done so in virtualized environments, Dougherty said.
Customers have been deploying virtual server environments like crazy, but mainly with simple products like Web servers where they can demonstrate immediate productivity gains, Dougherty said.
"For high-end applications like Oracle and SAP, customers would like to virtualize those applications but don't trust them to run on a high-availability scenario in virtual environments," he said.
The program currently only supports VMware's vSphere 4 virtualized environments, he said. "VMware is the only virtualization product supported on our ftServer," he said. "We plan to come out with support for Microsoft's Hyper-V later this year. Will we offer a similar guarantee for Microsoft? We'll see when it comes out."
Dougherty, who in April joined Stratus to take over its channel program, said his company is planning to update the program this summer as a bid to make it a more channel-friendly partner.
That will include adding more resources into technical support and training for solution providers, services opportunities for partners looking for an annuity stream, and one of the highest margins in the channel, Dougherty said.
Also to come will be Stratus' first-ever deal registration program, he said.
The new enhancements to the channel program are expected to be ready this Summer, he said.
