PolyServe, Inc. today announced an agreement with IBM to help customers reduce costs, ease implementation and better manage critical applications in high-performance clustering environments.

Under terms of the agreement, IBM will sell PolyServe solutions, including PolyServe Matrix Server™ shared data clustering software for Linux and Microsoft Windows®, through IBM’s direct channel to IBM eServer BladeCenter and xSeries customers in the U.S. In a related, but separate arrangement, IBM and PolyServe will also provide technical support for mutual customers who purchase IBM Support Line Services.

The agreement is designed to help meet growing customer demand for clustering solutions for scalable network-attached storage (NAS), UNIX migration and server and storage consolidation projects in the enterprise. Customers already benefiting from combined IBM and PolyServe solutions include the Burlington Coat Factory; DuPont; LPL Financial; MLT Vacations Inc., a subsidiary of Northwest Airlines Corporation; Putnam Securities; Tractor Supply Corporation; and U.S. Department of Defense.

"When we purchased PolyServe Matrix Server software and IBM server hardware for our clustered database architecture, there wasn't an option for one-stop shopping to acquire both products directly from IBM," said Chris Corona, manager, system services, MLT Vacations Inc. "Having selected PolyServe and IBM products independently for their reliability and outstanding customer support, we look forward to one-stop solution shopping for our future needs. Knowing that PolyServe and IBM have also partnered on support, in addition to product distribution, only reinforces the value of the IBM-PolyServe alliance."

PolyServe Matrix Server software allows enterprise data centers to cluster and manage up to 16 xSeries or BladeCenter servers running Linux or Windows as one single, easy-to-use, highly available system attached to a storage area network (SAN). With its true symmetric cluster file system, Matrix Server allows all servers in a cluster to simultaneously read and write shared data on IBM TotalStorage DS4000 Series, DS6000 Series, DS8000 Series, Enterprise Storage Server® solutions or other SANs.

“Customers often request a single source for complete clustering solutions,” said Mike Stankey, president and CEO of PolyServe. “We’re pleased they can now purchase PolyServe offerings directly from IBM along with IBM’s market-leading xSeries and BladeCenter servers and TotalStorage solutions. It’s a proven, powerful and cost-effective combination that supports a variety of customer usage scenarios and deployments.”

IBM eServer xSeries servers, featuring Intel® Xeon™ processors, provide outstanding availability and price/performance capabilities that help customers better manage and provision their IT environment. BladeCenter offers the high performance and manageability of IBM rack optimized platforms.

“We continue to build on a successful sales and support relationship with PolyServe to provide our mutual customers the products and support they need to achieve their business goals,” said Rob Sauerwalt, IBM eServer global brand executive. “With the help of partners like PolyServe, we can provide superior cluster solutions that support mission-critical customer data center applications such as scalable NAS, scale-out database serving, scale-out Web serving and IT infrastructure consolidation.”

About PolyServe

PolyServe, Inc. is a leading developer of shared data clustering software for Linux and Microsoft Windows mission-critical data centers. The company’s products reduce the cost and complexity associated with traditional clustering approaches, while offering superior scalability, availability, and manageability. In addition to its headquarters in Beaverton, Oregon, PolyServe has a Microsoft development center in Redmond, Wash. It also has sales and support offices in Atlanta, Austin, Boston, Chicago, Minneapolis, New York, Washington, D.C. and San Francisco. For more information about PolyServe, visit www.polyserve.com, or call 877-476-5973. PolyServe and Matrix Server are trademarks of PolyServe, Inc. All other company and product names may be trademarks of their respective owners. Copyright © 2004 PolyServe, Inc. All rights reserved.