. . . yesterday, thanks to virtualization. Alan McMillan, CEO of Toronto-based Avokia Inc., had words of hope for Demo attendees worried about Web application reliability: "True continuous availability of databases is possible by virtualizing the data layer." Avokia protects online transactions by running its apLive software on an application server. The software grabs the reads and writes before they hit the database, caches them and then immediately sends the data to fail-over systems that can be located more than 1,000 miles away. McMillan claims that no data is ever lost, even if there is a hard crash of your primary database server. He also estimates that by using apLive, you can reduce the number of servers needed for applications by more than half. Avokia's tool works with DB2, Informix, MySQL, Oracle, SQL Server and Sybase databases. It's written in Java, but Avokia will add a .Net version in June. Pricing is $225,000 per application for up to 32 CPUs.

Help your help desk to help hapless ...

... end users. You can start by considering giving help desk staffers the Support Appliance from NetworkStreaming Inc. in Ridgeland, Mississippi.

End users who click on a help desk button on their PCs are directed to the appliance, which asks them if they're willing to download a one-time plug-in for the help desk session. Problem notifications are put into the queues of help desk personnel, who can take control of PCs remotely and either solve the problems or escalate them to someone else. CEO Joel Bomgaars says Version 9.0 of the appliance's software, which was previewed at Demo, will let end users describe their problems through pull-down menus and text entries. The upgrade, which is scheduled to ship at the end of the first quarter, can handle up to 20 help desk staffers concurrently. Pricing for the appliance starts at $3,500 with a single concurrent-user license.