The unrelenting barrage of category four and five hurricanes in the southeast had management at Florida-based mega-retailer ABC Fine Wine & Spirits shaken and stirred- and keenly aware of their vulnerability. 154 retail stores in latitudes as far north as Tallahassee and as far south as Miami could be isolated without access to the company's IBM Systemi 550, which is housed in the executive office complex next to its 250,000 square foot distribution center in Orlando.

In the interest of due diligence, ABC weighed the virtues of several Systemi HA solutions and decided their money would be best spent on iTera High Availability. According to Jeff Armentrout, ABC's man in charge of high availability, "We also looked at MIMIX from Lakeview Technology and *noMAX from Maximum Availability. iTera High Availability is great technology and the pricing structure is a lot more attractive. When you buy a license for a primary machine you can get several backup node licenses inexpensively. Other vendors charge an expensive fee for each backup node."