Ceryx Releases High Availability, Hosted Exchange 2007 Offering in the Wake of Data Center Failures

TORONTO, October 16, 2008 – Ceryx, the leading provider of secure and reliable hosted and managed Microsoft(R) Exchange and messaging solutions, today announced the release of their high availability Messaging solution built on Exchange 2007 and Windows Server 2008. With this release Ceryx will be the first in the world to use this technology for clustering over a wide area network, stretching from Toronto to New York.

Ceryx, who operate data centers in both cities, have been providing their replicated solution on Exchange 2003 to medium and large businesses since 2004. Microsoft Exchange data is replicated in real-time to the secondary facility, providing 100% availability. In this recent release Ceryx is continuing to enhance the reliability of this technology to address what they see as major vulnerabilities in single data center deployments.

"We operate on the premise that even the best data center can and will experience failure due to circumstances beyond anyone's control," says Dr. David Penny, CIO at Ceryx. "We focus our Research and Development on keeping the application highly available and rely on our replication technology to mitigate the vulnerabilities that exist on an individual data center level."

In a recently released white paper, Ceryx examines numerous instances of high-profile single data center failures over the past year. Failures experienced by RackSpace, The Planet, Google and Pier 1 in Vancouver, to name just a few, have caused extended outages with high costs to businesses running mission-critical applications. The white paper entitled, "Force Majeure: Understanding and Managing the Risk of Data Center Failure", cites numerous reasons for these outages, including accidents and power-grid outages that fall outside the control of individual data center operators.

Through geographic clustering, using Microsoft Windows(R) Server 2008 and native Microsoft Exchange 2007 CCR (Cluster Continuous Replication) technology, Ceryx has been able to eliminate the reliance of redundant servers on the same set of disks thereby eliminating a common single point of failure and providing an extra layer of redundancy to their replicated solution.

For Bill Fife, Director of Technology at Wholesale Electric, high availability was a critical consideration when selecting a Hosted Exchange provider for its 300 employees. "A primary concern of ours, especially since the devastating Hurricanes in 2005, has been to protect messaging and ensure reliability during times of disaster. Since some of our busiest times are immediately after natural disasters - when people are trying to repair damage and restore electricity - any type of outage is simply unacceptable."

Roger Smith, V.P. of Operations at Ceryx, feels there is a disconnect between those executives demanding high availability and the commitment required to deliver. "When you present the facts, it becomes clear to everyone that an in-house data center couldn't possibly provide the levels of redundancy required and even on a co-location level we would need redundancy."

The white paper also examines other common reasons for outages, including software failure, data corruption and other areas where redundancy either didn't exist or failed. The recent software release by Ceryx continues to refine their replication and clustering technology as it relates to the highly complex Microsoft Exchange 2007 architecture.

The paper concludes that the only way to ensure high availability for mission critical-applications is by utilizing replication over multiple data centers. The white paper is available for download at http://www.ceryx.com/datacenter/

ABOUT CERYX INC.
Visit www.ceryx.com/about/ for more information.

For more information, please contact:
Gus Harsfai
Ceryx Inc.
gus.harsfai@ceryx.com
(416) 482-9659 ext. 101

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