For anyone putting together a back-office system for a business, getting the different components to work together, or ætalk to each otherÆ in CTO speak, is an important challenge to overcome. But help is on the way. Three of the largest players in their fields û VERITAS Software, Oracle and Sun Microsystems û have joined forces to build a more robust hardware and software infrastructure for conducting business over the internet.
The group has been jointly testing different configurations of their products, and two are now available for deployment. The configurations consist of Enterprise 4500 servers, StorEdge arrays and the Solaris Operating Environment from Sun Microsystems; OracleÆs database products; and Volume Manager and File System, including Oracle specific modules, from VERITAS.
The two configurations vary only in the version of each product installed, but the alliance plans to have up to five more validated configurations available by the end of the year that will offer improved high-availability and clustering services. According to the alliance, customers will enjoy a faster, more efficient service that ensures network components work together as smoothly as possible.
Support critical
With any system, no matter how well designed, good product support is a necessary lifeline should anything go wrong. It has often been difficult in the past to get adequate support for multi-vendor solutions, but the alliance aims to tackle this problem with a Joint Escalation Centre (JEC), which will act as a single source of expertise on the integrated systems. There is a JEC now operating in the US, but according to Patrick Lau, regional director for Asia-Pacific north at VERITAS, no centre has been established in the Asia-Pacific region yet. When it is, the centre will be manned 24 hours a day, seven days a week by experts from all three vendors. Until then, Lau says, customers who purchase either of the two available configurations will be able to get support either from a toll-free number to the US, or maybe the VERITAS customer service centre in Australia.
While the support service hasnÆt quite made it to the region yet, Lau says a consulting team has been set up to assist in the implementation of their systems. VOS Foundation Services has started out with two services initially. One is aimed at assessing the entire IT environment of a business and pinpointing ways that access to information, or availability, can be improved. The second service offers customized design and implementation of infrastructure to meet a companyÆs needs.
