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Stratus^® ftServer^® systems enable enterprise messaging that takes the heat

Many gourmet cooks (and would-be gourmet cooks) dream of having a Viking range in the kitchen. The range's iconic status is deserved. For more than 15 years, Viking Range Corporation has manufactured the finest, highest quality professional appliances for the home.

Few people are aware, however, that there is another object of desire behind the scenes at the company's Greenwood, Miss., headquarters - Viking's corporate e-mail and messaging infrastructure. Viking's IT staff has assembled a state-of-the-art messaging system that offers capabilities any user would covet. At Viking, bringing together e-mail, voice mail, and other forms of messaging keeps collaboration and productivity on the front burner at all times.

A key element of this advanced enterprise communication system is a fault-tolerant ftServer^® system from Stratus Technologies. The Stratus^® ftServer platform provides maximum uptime (greater than 99.999%) for the Microsoft^® Exchange Server e-mail system that supports 1,000 users. What's more, the industrial-strength server easily integrates with a separate unified messaging system, helping to bring employees the seamless communication on which they have come to depend.

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Cold standby was unappealing

Before ftServer systems entered the market, the server hardware that was commercially available did not satisfy Viking's needs for an e-mail platform able to protect against downtime.

The company's IT group had considered, but decided against, using a cluster of multiple servers to provide redundancy. The staff hours and the learning curve involved in deployment and maintenance were prohibitive.

"Our only reasonable choice at the time was to have one e-mail server on cold standby that was a replica of our production system," says Shyam Ramachandran, information technology manager at Viking. "This approach was by no means satisfactory, because bringing up the standby involved an unknown factor of recovery time. There is always that chance something will not work properly anytime you bring up an inactive server."

Lacking workable options in its server environment and requiring greater stability for its enterprise e-mail server, the team began to search for alternatives. Stratus Technologies had recently introduced its fault-tolerant family of Intel^® processor-based servers for Microsoft Windows^® environments. Being able to choose a server that ran the Windows 2000 Advanced Server operating system (the current version at the time) was an immediate attraction because of the vastly improved reliability of the operating system.

What made the Stratus ftServer system appealing when compared with other industry-standard server configurations was the built-in redundancy and system support enabled by the server's Continuous Processing^® technology. The IT team at Viking would for the first time be able to safeguard the e-mail system's uptime with capabilities that had long been on their wish list.

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Serving up redundancy, savings, support

Every ftServer system uses replicated components - CPUs, memory, I/O adapters, and more - that operate in lockstep. The duplicate components perform exactly the same task, in the same way, at the same time. In the case of a malfunction, the partner component acts as an active spare and continues normal operation to prevent system downtime. Lockstep hardware is complemented by the ftServer family's failsafe system software, which stops many software errors (such as problems with device drivers) from escalating into outages.

Both the server's lockstep hardware and failsafe software are transparent to standard Windows-based software. As a result, Microsoft Exchange Server and other off-the-shelf applications instantly take advantage of Stratus fault tolerance without the special configuration and software modification needed to use the high-availability features of a cluster. In Ramachandran's view, fault tolerance that is integral to the hardware platform itself saves many hours for IT professionals throughout the life of the server.

Lower cost is another substantial benefit enabled by the ftServer platform's single-system image. Explains Ramachandran, "The ftServer design reflects a single-system image important from a price standpoint as well as for availability and manageability. Unlike a multi-node cluster, the ftServer platform requires only one set of software licenses, which reduces costs and leads to a more stable, manageable system by reducing overall complexity."

As experienced IT practitioners, the Viking team deems support to be as essential as any physical feature of the e-mail server. Ramachandran says, "Any product is only as good as its support, no matter what kinds of bells and whistles it comes with. After-sale support is key. The 'call-home' feature of the ftServer system and the way Stratus Technologies supports its products make all the difference."

The ftServer system continually monitors its own operation, detecting, analyzing, and isolating problem conditions before they lead to downtime. The server's ActiveServiceT capabilities capture information about the issue and prompt the server to automatically report the problem through a secure, dialed connection to the Stratus Customer Assistance Center (CAC). Authorized support professionals are able to troubleshoot and resolve critical problems at any time, without traveling to Viking's site.

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Ingredient for unified messaging, server consolidation

Having secured the uptime of its Microsoft Exchange Server with the Stratus ftServer platform, Viking is prepared to sustain an advanced corporate e-mail and messaging infrastructure that includes unified messaging. Running on a platform separate from the e-mail server, the unified messaging system allows users to retrieve and send e-mail, voice, and fax messages from a single interface. Presence management empowers users to decide how and when they will receive messages, and lets colleagues know how best to reach the person they are trying to contact.

E-mail residing on the Stratus ftServer system blends right into this unified messaging scheme. For example, users may choose to listen to e-mail from their phones.

After beginning with Exchange 2000 Server and a first generation Stratus ftServer system, the firm has moved to Exchange Server 2003 and a next-generation ftServer model. Server consolidation is the next achievement that Viking's IT team plans for the ftServer platform. All of the company's e-mail domains, as well as those of Viking-owned distributors across the U.S., are being consolidated at the Greenwood headquarters.

Says Ramachandran, "We are excited about the scalability and the response time that we expect to achieve with our next ftServer system. We can accommodate multiple domains in the same box. We can use one server instead of using, say, 10 servers for five or six companies' e-mail domains."

At Viking Range, the reliable ftServer system continues to ensure that efficient, dependable enterprise messaging is always on the menu.

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