News

posted on 11 August 2008 05:34

O2 is recommending that UK-based Blackberry smartphone servers are protected against failure by a Neverfail replication-and-failover package.

Business users of the RIM Blackberry smartphone rely upon a Blackberry Enterprise Server (BES) functioning as a front-end for their hand-held wireless devices. Without the BES system their smartphones cannot receive corporate e-mail.

Neverfail software provides high-availability and disaster recovery for servers by replicating all data changes on one to a second server and constantly sending a so-called heartbeat message from he primary to the secondary server. If the heartbeat message stops then the primary server has failed and its functions are failed-over to the secondary.

The BES system runs a SQL database, an e-mail system layered on that and the Blackberry BES software layered on top. Neverfail for Blackberry Enterprise Server is aware of this 3-layer stack and maintains the secondary server as a hidden clone of the primary BES system. It will failover to it if the software in the primary server becomes affected by errors and will not just wait for a software or hardware crash. Failover takes around 60 - 90 seconds.

Neverfail has joined an O2 accelerator program, O2 providing RIM with wireless coverage in the UK. It means that O2 will recommend Neverfail as a business continuity offering for BES to its customers.

Richard Ruddlesden, Neverfail's EMEA director of mobility, said: "We're the only high-availability, disaster prevention supplier for BES. ... Email and data downtime is a fact of life should any part of the mobility infrastructure fail ... We look forward to providing uninterrupted access to mobile applications and keeping
O2's customers constantly productive regardless of data centre failures."

An entry-level Neverfail protection package for BES costs from around £10,000 (say roughly $20,000) for up to 250 connected Blackberry users.

^{[Chris Mellor.]}