Invensys first to support virtualisation for high availability

The company's ArchestrA System Platform 2012 and Wonderware InTouch 2012 software are now certified for the latest VMware solutions, including vSphere version 5.0 and ESXi version 5.0, for mission-critical applications. "Historically, high-availability and disaster-recovery solutions in supervisory control systems were expensive to implement, not only because of hardware and software costs, but also additional administrative burdens," explains Maryanne Steidinger, director of product marketing at Invensys. "Along with many other benefits, when ArchestrA System Platform and InTouch software are deployed, they support high-availability and disaster-recovery implementations using Windows Server Hyper-V virtualisation from Microsoft, as well as the latest remote desktop services that are part of Windows Server 2008 R2," she continues. Steidinger also says the certification follows "a rigorous validation period", using VMware virtualisation, using commercial operating systems and off-the-shelf hardware – making the point that costs and implementation effort are reduced, even on mission-critical applications. Analysts have been quick to agree the advantages. "End users are rapidly deploying virtualisation solutions to reduce the number of physical servers needed for their plants," comments Craig Resnick, vice president of ARC Advisory Group. "Virtualisation technology also helps end users with system deployment of high-availability, disaster-recovery and fault-tolerance solutions, as it is used to quickly get plants back up and running when computers fail, regardless of location," he continues. "Invensys Operations Management's certification for both VMware and Microsoft Hyper-V ensures that its customers are covered and protected regardless of their choice of platform."