Cross-Platform Management Tool Vendor Seeks Partners

by Dan Burger

While IBM ceaselessly sang the praises of its open-system strategy at last week's PartnerWorld conference, managed availability vendor Vision Solutions was humming a similar tune as it searched for additional international business partners to help it sell ORION, Vision's soon-to-be-offered software for managing data and application availability across multiple applications, databases, and servers.

Sources at Vision say ORION will be launched in mid-2003, and that the central management functions of this tool will allow data sharing from as many as five separate databases residing on multiple server operating systems. ORION, which is currently in beta, has been designed to manage data and application resiliency on the iSeries and Windows 2000 and Linux servers from SuSE, Red Hat, and Turbolinux.

As we know from the high availability offerings designed for strictly OS/400 environments, the coordination of failovers on three different platforms will be a complex operation. ORION has been designed to mirror entire servers and databases and is also capable of replicating individual files on all but Windows servers, where discreet data replication will not be available until later.

To prepare for the product launch, Vision is looking to expand its business partner channel. Because of its traditional AS/400 and iSeries customer base, the company hopes to add solution-integrator-level partners with technology skills in the Windows, Linux, and Unix environments, and those with multiplatform-solution proficiency. Classes, scheduled on a quarterly basis, are under way to certify partners.

Vision reports more than 40 partners in United States. Partnerships are established at five levels that include those that simply provide referrals and more sophisticated resellers and system integrators that have the highest level of implementation and solution-architect skills. Vision currently has 15 solution-integrator partners across the United States.

At PartnerWorld 2003, with its focus on the huge IBM sales channel, enormous importance was placed on multiplatform support and selling into a broader base of customers. Executives at Vision Solutions see ORION as a perfect fit for this message, and its recruiting of new business partners is seen as being critical to the degree of success enjoyed at the product's launch.

"A trained and ready partner channel is crucial to the measured approach we are taking with the ORION launch," said Nicolaas Vlok, chief executive officer at Vision Solutions. "We are committed to supplying partners with the training and certification necessary to begin taking advantage of the new opportunities that ORION provides, not only with the iSeries markets but in the Windows and Linux markets as well."

The Vision Solutions installed base, according to company literature, exceeds 1,800 customers in more than 70 countries, and includes 4,300 product installations. The Irvine, California, based company is one of the prominent managed-availability vendors for the iSeries and AS/400 market. Its product lineup includes Symbiator, a data integration tool, and Vision Suite, an iSeries-specific product for managing data and applications.

Within the IBM partner channel, Vision is an IBM premier business partner and an IBM premier high availability business partner. Application and database companies that have strategic alliances with Vision include J.D. Edwards, Misys International Banking Systems, International Business Systems, Intentia International, Microsoft, and Oracle. For more information on Vision Solutions, go to www.visionsolutions.com.

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