A year ago January, Neverfail introduced Neverfail for VMware VirtualCenter (now called VMware vCenter Server), which has reportedly seen growing interest and use by blue-chip organizations. The same technology behind Neverfail for VirtualCenter forms the basis of VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat.

The Neverfail continuous availability technology and application management framework (AMF) software in Heartbeat is meant to proactively guard against planned and unplanned downtime and ensure that vCenter Server and key capabilities like V-Motion and Distributed Resource Scheduler keep on ticking.

VMware's decision to protect VCenter with the Neverfail solution is supposed to reflect the increasing use of VMware's virtualization solution in mission-critical production environments.

The widgetry is supposed to protect vCenter Server against a broad range of downtime risks by replicating the server configuration and data to a passive standby server.

It will monitor vCenter Server connectivity and components, including the license server and VMware Update Manager, and can restart the entire vCenter Server instance on the passive server in case of operator error, operating system or hardware failure, or external events.

VMware vCenter Server Heartbeat should be available standalone in March for $9,995 per protected vCenter Server instance or for $12,995 when bundled with a vCenter Server license.

The UK-based Neverfail has specialized in keeping Windows apps, e-mail and mobile servers up. It has predominantly served financial, legal and government customers and has strategic alliances with IBM, Microsoft and Vodafone in addition to VMware.