Ibaanerp Now 'Clusterproven' For Iseries On Ibm's Eserver - Product Announcement

EDP Weekly's IT Monitor, March 26, 2001

Baan has announced that its iBaanERP software is now ClusterProven for iSeries -- previously the IBM AS/400 family. Baan has cluster-enabled iBaanERP to ensure that if there is any disruption to the iSeries box running the software, causing it to automatically switch to a back-up server, applications will suffer minimal interruption. This will provide customers with improved protection against downtime, both planned and unplanned, providing global e-businesses with near year-round system availability and the high levels of resilience they need to compete efficiently in the new Internet economy.

iBaanERP is part of the company's major new generation suite of Internet-enabled value Web collaboration solutions, which has been developed to link complex enterprise applications using proven technology, and bring it all to the desktop in an easy-to-use Web-based environment. iBaan is ideally placed to help industrial organisations as they move to build-to-order models, supporting companies as they start to integrate their complex processes, collaborate more closely with customers and partners, and provide their employees with all the information they need through a standard Web browser.

"As enterprise solutions continue to integrate tightly into the B2B and B2C world, continuous availability is a key requirement," said Leen van der Maas, Baan's Vice President of Strategic Alliances. "We believe that this new capability will position Baan as the most resilient enterprise solution, which is of great value to customers if they are going to compete effectively in today's global e-commerce marketplace."

The participating systems in the iSeries cluster constantly check on one another through IBM's heartbeat monitoring function. If the cluster determines that the primary server has failed, the high availability application automatically switches to the secondary machine in the cluster, where the application resumes at a place at or near the point it was when the system failed. The iSeries cluster support also reduces planned downtime -- for example, it enables the application to be switched to a back-up server while the primary server is serviced, upgraded or backed-up.

Steve Finnes, IBM's Enterprise Server Technologies Segment Manager for the iSeries, commented: "The iSeries is so robust that the market used to question the benefit of clustering our servers, but that's all changing because of e-business. The tolerance to downtime is rapidly shrinking to zero."

Baan is a business unit of Invensys plc, having been acquired in September 2000. Baan has been integrated into the Invensys Software Systems division -- a global leader in providing unified E-Business/automation solutions.

Baan's best-in-class solutions address the business needs of the entire extended enterprise, with powerful E-Business solutions that help engineering and manufacturing companies transition to the Internet. The company's inter-enterprise ERP, Supply Chain Management, Customer Relationship Management and E-Business solutions are deployed at more than 15,000 customer sites worldwide, helping customers to drive strategic business growth, improve business processes, reduce operating complexity, and increase corporate flexibility.