IBM’s iSeries, formerly the AS/400, has a wide and loyal following among small and midsize businesses looking for a reliable, easy to manage platform for enterprise applications. So it’s nice to see the number of software tools available for the server expanding.

Late last month, SteelEye Technology, which builds high availability clustering software for Linux and windows environments, announced that it was expanding beyond its x86 roots to support the iSeries, or the System i5, as it’s now called. It’s great news for customers taking advantage of the multiple OS support on IBM’s midrange box.

Today, the iSeries can support not just the proprietary i5/OS, but since it’s now built on the same Power5 chip that runs IBM's AIX-based servers, it also can support AIX and Linux as guest OSes in virtual partitions. At the same time, customers can integrate Windows or Linux workloads on x86-based System x or BladeCenter servers into the iSeries, getting access to the management and storage available on the System i5.

IBM execs say they’re seeing increasing interest in running Windows and Linux on the iSeries and so they wanted to have a high availability tool available for those customers. IBM has been focused on expanding the software support for iSeries for a couple years now.

Big Blue began working with SteelEye to have SteelEye’s technology – including LifeKeeper, its flagship high availability software – support clusters of Linux and Windows workloads that are integrated with the i5/OS. SteelEye is partnering with Vision Solutions, which provides HA software for System i5. The two have linked up their technologies in order to give organizations running multiple OSes a reliable architecture.

“Companies are putting standard operating systems onto proprietary platforms so we wanted to bring our products to System i,” says Bob Williamson, vice president of products at SteelEye. “Vision Solutions will do the iSeries stuff and SteelEye will handle Windows and Linux.”

That means customers that are running multi-OS workloads on the System i5 will get all the advantages of a truly resilient platform, Williamson says.

LifeKeeper is priced per server and pricing varies depending on the type of application being protected, Williamson says. Pricing ranges from about $2,000 per server to about $6,000 per server.