Star, the business ISP, is launching Critical Switch, a new business continuity service that will give SMBs the ability to deliver high availability uptime of e-commerce websites, critical applications, SQL servers and email environments. Star's Critical Switch service will get a website back up and running after and outage, by capturing website data and transferrring it into a standby environment so that business-as-usual can be restores while the initial problem is resolved - even if the site is currently offline.

Developed in partnership with Business Protection Systems International (BPSI), a global provider of business planning solutions, Critical Switch is a unique failover solution, which can be deployed in any environment, whether it is hosted in-house, with another provider, or through Star's business hosting service, to ensure that businesses have the technology, the processes and the expertise in place to deal with unexpected downtime, no matter what the cause.

"We are delighted to be working with BPSI on such innovative and exciting product. By working in partnership we are able to maximise Star's technology as well as providing dedicated support to customers through a business continuity portal, seminars and bespoke consultancy." comments Ben White, Chief Executive Officer at Star Technology Services Ltd. "We have reacted to feedback from our SMB customers and developed Critical Switch which will provide them with an enterprise level solutions priced from as little as £250 per month."

"Critical Switch will help safeguard small and medium-sized businesses' online activities, regardless of their current hosting provider. Bringing this service to market with the help of BPSI means our customers get dedicated support through a series a proactive workshops, a business continuity portal and bespoke consultancy."

Star's partner Richard Cooper, President and Chief Operating Officer of BPSI, has been instrumental in developing Critical Switch. He added "When Star approached us about we were thrilled to be involved due to their unique approach. Be delivering holistic, scalable business continuity planning tools and services to the SMB market, we are able to complement Star's failover technology solutions at SMB price points."

As a Microsoft Gold Partner, 80% of Star's hosting business is based around Microsoft Windows 2003 server solutions both transactional and dynamic websites, which use IIS and Microsoft SQL Server 2005 to underpin their revenue-generating activities. Star Critical Switch will provide seamless failover and data replication for these core platforms.

"Customers are looking for partner companies that can bridge the gap between their business demands and technology capabilities." said Martin Walker, UK Hosting Lead at Microsoft. "They need to trust in a company that can act as an expert and advise for their long-term strategic technology plans to be able to provide customer satisfaction using Microsoft products and adviser for their long-term strategic technology plans to be able to provide customer satisfaction using Mircosoft products and technology."