VMware has announced a new virtual application service which it claims can provide significantly reduced downtime and data loss when hardware fails.

Fault Tolerance, unveiled at VMworld 2008 in Las Vegas, is one of the new Application vServices the firm launched in conjunction with its Virtual Datacenter Operating System, a new strategy that allows businesses to aggregate all hardware resources, servers, storage and networks into an on-premises cloud.

Virtual machines holding the new system will be up and running within four seconds if a fault occurs, according to firm.

Bogomil Balansky, marketing director at VMware, said that Fault Tolerance was the most significant of the many announcements at VMworld. "We are breaking new ground that no one has before," he said.

Harbinder Singh, a network engineer at New York's Stony Brook University Hospital, said that he would be looking at the new solution and would most likely deploy it if the hospital's IT infrastructure holds the necessary connections.

"I am most excited about Fault Tolerance because a certain percentage of the hospital's virtual machines are critical and have to run 24 hours a day," he told vnunet.com. "This would offer a great solution if the host were to go down."

Matthew Clark, director of telecoms supplier Qualcomm, explained that he was impressed with Fault Tolerance because of its accessibility.

"It can be turned on with a mouse click and you get the same result that fault tolerant hardware or software clustering would give you at a fraction of the cost and effort," he said.