SteelEye LifeKeeper keeps the news delivered around the clock

SteelEye LifeKeeper ensures high availability for media group's SAP applications on 64-bit Linux

LinuxWorld Conference & Expo, Frankfurt, 27th October 2004 SteelEye LifeKeeper for mySAP is being used to ensure high availability for critical financial and customer database applications in the installation of a new 64-bit Linux environment of a large Swiss multi-media group. It is the first time that LifeKeeper has been employed in a 64-bit Linux environment to protect mySAP applications.

St. Galler Tagblatt publishes a national daily broadsheet newspaper with eight provincial editions, and also operates a TV and radio station. In order to deliver news to its 239,000 newspaper and online readers, it required a means of ensuring 24/7 availability for the subscription database, supporting online services and central business financial applications.

The company's head of IT Services, Erich Giesinger, says that LifeKeeper provides an excellent fit with its infrastructure and with the needs of a continuous business operation: "As with any news media organisation operating radio, TV, online and printed publications, we are broadcasting 24 hours a day, 7 days a week. That makes defining our objective quite straightforward: we have to ensure constant, around the clock services for our audiences.

"We are an innovative thinking company and look to use leading edge technology in new projects. We chose 64-bit for better processing power and Linux to consolidate the running costs of our IT systems. SteelEye's LifeKeeper was the first to offer protection in this environment and because it does everything we need it to do, we're extremely confident that our applications are safe."

LifeKeeper for mySAP is installed on two IBM Itanium-based x-Series 64-bit servers, running SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8, ensuring continuous availability of St. Galler Tagblatt's SAPDB 7.4.3 and SAP Release 4.6c applications. It provides administrators with the ability to monitor the entire application stack, high availability clustering and automated disaster recovery in a single, affordable solution.

Administrators can optionally failover components securely, efficiently and with minimal complexity. LifeKeeper also enables automatic monitoring and failover out-of-hours, when system administrators are not on duty.

John Banfield, EMEA Director, SteelEye Technology, Inc., said: "One of the drivers for deploying applications and databases on 64-bit Intel-based servers running Linux is the lower cost compared with proprietary RISC/UNIX servers. However, unless critical business applications running on those servers are properly protected, the potential price/performance benefit is lost to companies in the event of service failure.

"LifeKeeper eliminates that concern for SAP applications in a 64-bit Linux environment, which means St. Galler Tagblatt is receiving the full value of its infrastructure choice," he added.

Computer Concept CC Computersysteme und Kommunikationstechnik GmbH is SteelEye's distribution partner in Germany, Austria, Switzerland and Eastern Europe and installed LifeKeeper at St. Galler Tagblatt. Dr. Mira Stranz, responsible for the high availability business line at Computer Concept, said: "This installation has proved very effective at protecting the customer's SAP applications in its Linux environment. With SAP's increasing popularity and the introduction of 64-bit Linux, LifeKeeper could bring benefits to many other customers in future."