Availability/reliability

I have an RFP for a computer system where we have included an item
regarding system availability.  We are asking vendors to supply a third
party supplied availablity number that must exceed 99.5%.  My problem is
that I have not come across a number reported by an outside firm such as
Gartner, Yankee, Reliability Ratings, etc.

On the AS/400 site the 99.97% number is supplied by IBM.  While I believe
this number from IBM (because we have historically exceeded it) I want this
number to be supplied by a third party because I believe it to have more
credibility.  The systems we are looking at are of course AS/400 and
Windows NT.

Question is, does anyone know if these kind of numbers are supplied by
someone like Gartner, Reliability Ratings, etc.?  I have not come across
anything while searching the web.......

Michael Crump
Technical Project Leader
Ball-Foster Glass Container Corp.


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