September 9 is my birthday, and it reminds me of the significance of 9s. I'm Lorraine Bartlett, VP of Marketing and Strategy for HP's Business Critical Systems business unit. Kirk Bresniker, our CTO, is out talking with customers for a few weeks, so I've taken over his blog to discuss a subject that's of high importance to me and more importantly to everyone managing mission critical infrastructure. Essentially, my job is to ensure that our customers sleep at night. I chose today to discuss this topic because it's an anniversary or sorts at HP. It's been over 10 years since we put a stake in the ground to support five 9s mission critical standard on HP-UX. And, it's 10 years to the day that we expanded our five 9s partnership with SAP and BEA. Ten years! A lot has happened in the tech industry since 9-9-99.

Certainly in 10 years the definition of "mission critical" has evolved and along with it the demand for continuous uptime has increased. What does "mission critical" mean these days? I'm sure it depends on who you ask. My daughter thinks her laptop (and all the infrastructure behind it that she doesn't comprehend) is "mission critical" when she's trying to submit her homework at five minutes to midnight on the day it's due. But, here's what it means to me - based on the significant input from our Business Critical Systems customers: system availability when you need it, with predictable response times, with the flexibility to meet the most demanding business requirement peaks. 

Mission critical capabilities are even more important today. In these past 10 years, the expectations have soared, putting more pressure on businesses to deliver services around-the-clock, without interruption. Predictable availability of services is a significant differentiator for businesses today. Technology is now an integral factor to their business success. Our customers know that mission critical infrastructure aligned to their business requirements is a competitive advantage as a result of increased partner and end-user satisfaction. A lot has changed since 9-9-99, but here's one thing that remains constant: the demands of our business critical customers mean that a mission critical infrastructure is even more important today than it was 10 years ago.  

As the sun goes down, I know I can celebrate my birthday while our HP customers rest easy knowing their mission critical infrastructure is delivering on their requirements of system availability and response time.

Do you agree - or disagree? How do you define mission critical? I want to hear your thoughts. 

More Mission Critical next week from me while Kirk is off traveling the globe.