As a leading provider of next-generation clustering software for Microsoft® Windows®–based data centers, PolyServe, Inc. helps organizations transform their data center infrastructure and reduce capital and operating expenses. PolyServe Matrix Server enables multiple Windows-based servers to share data and to function as a single, easy-to-use, highly available system.
Opportunity & Innovation
Thanks to their strong partnership with Microsoft, PolyServe has developed enterprise-class solutions for Microsoft SQL ServerTM consolidation, file server consolidation, and Web content server consolidation while cultivating a profitable channel of solution providers. Prior to the development of Matrix Server shared data clustering, data center managers accommodated application growth by “scaling up” with expensive multiprocessor servers or replicating data across several servers, and delivered high availability with simple paired server failover schemes. The cost of larger servers and managing multiple data silos often offset any enterprise gains.
Setting a new standard in server consolidation, data sharing, and cluster management, Matrix Server:
- Ensures availability of all mission-critical applications. Data is continually available because Matrix Server clusters can withstand multiple server and storage path failures.
- Enhances asset utilization. Teams of smaller, price-performant servers share data and access a common, unified storage pool across a storage area network (SAN).
- Reduces server and storage management costs. Servers and storage can now be managed as a single coherent entity.
Matrix Server enables customers to cluster their existing two-processor and four-processor servers into a scalable file-serving utility, rather than purchasing an eight-processor server costing $50,000 or more that offers no high-availability protection should it fail. The flexibility to add incremental capacity “on demand” has also helped data center managers avoid over-provisioning resources and optimize purchasing.
Customers currently migrating servers and data to Matrix Server include Synovate, Texas A&M, Petro/Star Gas Partners, and University HealthSystem Consortium. Some customers’ results proved that they can achieve a dramatically more manageable and flexible data center—reducing server count and storage costs by as much as 50 percent.
Microsoft Partnership
PolyServe’s partnership with Microsoft has been instrumental in developing and supporting the innovative Matrix Server product. Development of the complex file system technology and distributed lock manager, for example, was facilitated by PolyServe’s relationship with Microsoft developers. “The close relationship with Microsoft has enabled PolyServe to accelerate its development and QA progress, allowing us to launch our Windowsbased enterprise-class product last year,” offers Ron Kase, Partner at New Enterprise Associates and a PolyServe investor. “Moreover, PolyServe and its venture investors have been well served by the decision to enhance our product for Microsoft SQL Server environments because those SQL Server opportunities now represent 50 percent of our 2004 sales pipeline.”
As a Microsoft Certified Partner, PolyServe has been able to forge strong alliances with important Windows-based data center participants such as Hewlett-Packard, Dell, and IBM, in addition to a number of other Microsoft Certified solution providers. Todd Behrbaum, General Manager of Microsoft Solutions at PolyServe, offers, “Our partnership has paved the way for phenomenal PolyServe software revenue growth and increased customer satisfaction.”
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