SunGard Availability Services Adds Support Of VMware(R) ESX Server To Operating System Management Services

WAYNE, Pa., Sept. 4 /PRNewswire/ -- SunGard Availability Services today announced it is now offering support of VMware(R) ESX Server 3.x and the distributed services that are part of VMware Infrastructure through its Operating System (OS) Management Service. With this enhancement, SunGard now provides full management of customers' systems running in a virtualized environment on the VMware Infrastructure platform-a key milestone in the company's ongoing virtualization initiative. The service includes a VMware VirtualCenter management server to monitor and manage a customer's virtual machines, as well as complete monitoring, management and reporting of the physical servers.

As enterprises develop virtualization strategies beyond server consolidation, new needs arise for virtualization infrastructure management. Many companies are using the distributed services that are part of VMware Infrastructure such as VMware High Availability, VMotion and VMware Distributed Resource Scheduler to help ensure availability of their critical systems, applications and information. SunGard can manage these systems, both in production and testing, allowing internal IT teams to focus on more strategic initiatives, while also saving costly investments in infrastructure.

"SunGard Availability Services has long been providing support of partitioned operating systems, both for UNIX(R) and AS/400(R) systems, and now extends this expertise to x86 systems," said Frank Lacomba, director of product management, SunGard Availability Services. "We have taken this step to support the needs of our customers, as VMware's virtualization technology becomes more popular and widely integrated into enterprise IT infrastructure."

While virtualization can be a valuable tool, many IT teams are not well- equipped to implement or manage it. According to Dan Golding, vice president and senior analyst at Tier1 Research, "There's a virtualization skills gap- many companies do not have the expertise to manage complex virtual implementations and ongoing support. Turning to a third-party provider with experience in partitioning can help get a head-start on virtualization, particularly over the next 18-24 months."

The enhanced Operating System Management Service featuring support of VMware ESX Server and the distributed virtualization services that are part of VMware Infrastructure is available today. Please visit http://www.availability.sungard.com for additional information on supported infrastructure and system requirements.

About SunGard Availability Services

SunGard Availability Services is the pioneer and leading provider of information availability solutions, helping to ensure that more than 10,000 customers in North America and Europe have access to their business-critical information systems. With nearly 4 million square feet of secure facilities, SunGard offers a complete range of information availability solutions that include managed IT, professional and business continuity services. SunGard provides services to support an always-on production environment, as well as over 30 technology platforms to support customers who require a traditional 24-48 hour recovery time frame. SunGard also has technology and systems management services for application and data center outsourcing, as well as business continuity consulting services and planning software. For more information about SunGard Availability Services, visit http://www.availability.sungard.com or call 1-800-523-4970.

About SunGard

With annual revenue exceeding $4 billion, SunGard is a global leader in software and processing solutions for financial services, higher education and the public sector. SunGard also helps information-dependent enterprises of all types to ensure the continuity of their business. SunGard serves more than 25,000 customers in more than 50 countries, including the world's 50 largest financial services companies. Visit SunGard at http://www.sungard.com.

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