Marathon Guarantees Network Uptime for Innovative European Broadcaster
THE COMPANY
Central European Media Enterprises (CME), the pioneering television broadcasting company, operates the leading group of TV networks and stations across Central and Eastern Europe. When it was launched in 1994, CME provided the newly democratised nations of the former Soviet bloc with a voice independent from state-controlled broadcasting monopolies. Today, CME and its partners operate nine networks in six countries, have a turnover of $1 billion, are listed on the NASDAQ and are market leaders in Romania, the Slovak Republic, Slovenia, Ukraine and the Czech Republic.
"We are highly impressed that none off our programmes and data were affected by the move and we can now reply on server availability up to 99.999% of the time."
THE SITUATION
CME is obliged to file quarterly financial reports in line with regulations set by the U.S. Securities and Exchange Commission (SEC). Failure to present this information to the SEC on time would result in a minimum fine of $30,000.
CME produces reports during three-week periods, five times each year. Access to company data, applications and operating systems is vital during these times, with network downtime posing a serious threat to meeting the SEC's requirements and deadlines. Traditionally, CME had to ensure the constant availability of a technician during report time to prevent and maintain its systems from failure. Frequently these technicians worked into the early hours while financial staff worked to complete the report. The company needed a more effective way to ensure continuous availability.
The need for continuous availability was intensified when CME decided to relocate to a different floor within its office block. During the move, the broadcaster required continuous network access and the reassurance that its existing data would remain protected.
THE SOLUTION
Following recommendations of its technology partner, Green IT, CME implemented Marathon Technologies' everRun FT solution to guarantee network uptime without the need for labour intensive intervention.
Marathon created a virtual server running simultaneously on two standard Windows servers. Its software synchronizes these servers within a single application environment and maintains availability under any circumstance. If a component or server fails, applications continue to operate uninterrupted on the remaining server.
CME's new system eliminates the need for specialised hardware, modified or cluster-aware applications and manual failover procedures by technical staff. In the event of network failure, application availability is continuous, seamless and invisible to the end-user.
THE RESULTS
Since implementing the everRun FT solution, CME has experienced zero downtime. Running financial reports and meeting SEC reporting regulations has become easy for CME. The process does not drain IT resources and the company can rely on server uptime.
As further testimony to the system's success, the software's capabilities were utilised during CME's recent office move. Marathon's capabilities were used to ensure continued application availability.
One server was kept active on the eighth floor white the other was moved to CME's new space on the second floor. When this server was also active, the first was disconnected, transported alongside the other server on the second floor and reconnected. The two servers went on to operate synchronously to ensure consistent availability.
"CME's technology move went very smoothly," says Justin Green at Green IT. "There was no interruption to service and CME was able to access all data and applications at all times."
Since the office move, there was a further test to CME's new system when its Exchange server exceeded memory capacity and broke down. Marathon was able to maintain email activity and give technical staff the time needed to reboot the server and save the problem.
Clayton Doige, IT project manager, CME, commended on the implementation of the Marathon system and the fluidity of the office move. "Through careful planning the whole process was very straightforward. We are highly impressed that none off our programmes and data were affected by the move and we can now reply on server availability up to 99.999% of the time."
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