NEC Corporation of America announced new system continuity software solutions, with aggressive pricing, designed to drive adoption of best-practice high availability solutions for virtual systems and extend NEC's 40-plus percent compounded annual growth rate (CAGR) in the North American market since 2005.

NEC's award-winning ExpressCluster product family is the only true integrated application and data continuity solution available today.

The new system continuity software solutions boast significant upgrades, including:

• the industry's only system continuity solution support of all three top virtualization platforms,
• new data protection features,
• new operating system and application support, and
• support of the IPv6 network protocol.

ExpressCluster can run on Microsoft Windows or Linux operating systems and in virtualized, physical, or mixed virtual-physical x86 server platforms. This multiplatform capability, combined with the new enhancements, helps extend the life of, or 'future-proof,' system continuity solutions based on ExpressCluster.

"After a review of some of the most popular software disaster recovery solutions, NEC's ExpressCluster WAN was the natural choice based on its performance and features," said Ryan Chantler, president of Toggle Networks, a Canada-based provider of business continuity and disaster recovery services. "Not only do we use ExpressCluster for our own data center, but we employ it as a key part of our client offerings, as well, and I expect these latest ExpressCluster solutions to generate even more interest and adoption." More information about Toggle Networks can be found at www.togglenetworks.com.

NEC's ExpressCluster product family has had more than 40 percent CAGR since its North American debut in 2005. ExpressCluster's growth has been driven by its focus on integrated application continuity and data continuity - which is especially appealing to small- and medium-sized businesses as well as departmental and branch office workgroups looking for comprehensive and cost-effective system continuity solutions. Worldwide, NEC is among the top providers of Windows- and Linux-based high availability software solutions.

"The x86 server world is being transformed by the rapid adoption of virtualization technology, and high-availability software offerings must now address the need to protect customers' applications whether they are running on physical servers or on virtual servers," said Jean S. Bozman, Research Vice President, IDC. "This means that high availability (HA) software solutions need to be able to reach across physical and virtual server deployments, and to work well with replication products that protect data across locations and geographies, in order to ensure a comprehensive solution that supports HA for server workloads -- and business continuity for the enterprise."

"NEC's dedication to providing top system continuity software solutions cannot be overstated, and we are proud to announce our progress on so many levels today," said George Wu, director of software business, NEC Corporation of America. "Our achievement so far -- a new, visionary product, aggressively priced, along with enthusiastic customers and decisive growth in a competitive market -- is validation of our focus. NEC is committed to delivering forward-looking solutions that meet and exceed the needs of companies to protect their applications and data at all times. That was the rationale behind our latest ExpressCluster offering, and we believe it helps explain our rapid growth in North America, as well."

NEC ExpressCluster delivers clear advantages in performance, usability and cost of ownership for SAN, LAN and WAN environments:

• PERFORMANCE: Fast and automatic system recovery, and real-time data protection;
• USABILITY: Unified management of all protected applications and data stores, with easy server workload migration requiring no client reconfiguration; and
• COST OF OWNERSHIP: Standard OS and application support, low-bandwidth network, and active-active configuration support.

New product highlights

• New ExpressCluster SAN for hypervisor products is the first to deliver support all for the leading hypervisor virtualization platforms, including Microsoft Hyper-V, Xen Hypervisor, and VMware ESX;
• New release of ExpressCluster WAN offers enhanced data protection with a hybrid disk resource option providing local high availability and remote disaster recovery within a single solution;
• All ExpressCluster products offer enhanced total cost of ownership benefits with iSCSI storage system support;
• New OS and application support, including support of Microsoft Windows Server 2008, Microsoft SQL Server 2008, and Microsoft Exchange 2007;
• Provides future-proof enhancements that include support for the next-generation IPv6 network protocol and IPMI server power control function; and
• Management console enhancements that further simplify operation of the only true integrated application and data continuity solution available.

Channel focus
NEC ExpressCluster solutions are currently sold exclusively through VARS and other channel partners. NEC Corporation of America offers distinct and regionalized support for our partners in all North American regions. Potential channel partners should visit http://www.necam.com/ExpressPartners/ for more information.

Pricing and availability
Like all ExpressCluster solutions, the new ExpressCluster SAN for hypervisor products are specifically designed for high performance and cost effectiveness and will be priced starting at $1,995.00 (USD) per physical hypervisor host server.

The new ExpressCluster products and releases will be generally available starting in July 2008.