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Light Edge, Stratus lower the cost of fault-tolerant computing

The introduction of the W series 2300 server from Stratus will bring cost-efficient continuous availability to a wider market. Through local platform integration specialist, Light Edge Technology, businesses with productivity critical applications will have access to 99.999% uptime without spending 99.999% of their budget.

"Businesses have become increasingly dependent on their information networks to the point that any unscheduled or extended downtime impacts the bottom line even if the applications are not mission-critical core systems," says Dick Sharod, country manager at Stratus Technologies. "The challenge is balancing the financial investment in continuous uptime infrastructure against the cost of downtime. The 2300 offers the benefit of fault tolerance at a radically reduced cost."

Bobby Richter, technical director at Light Edge, says: "An IT manager challenged with hitting a low unit cost per server in a widely distributed environment either faces high deployment and maintenance costs or sacrifices high availability to achieve the low price point. Low cost simplex servers typically lack uptime reliability and remote servicing technology. High-availability clusters offer improved reliability for a higher price but do not lend themselves to distributed computing environments because they are difficult to deploy, manage and maintain. By comparison, the 2300 is as easy to deploy as a simplex server, designed to meet the needs of a distributed environment and comes at a cost-effective unit price."

The W series 2300 server is ideal for decentralised deployments at remote locations where lights-out system management is desirable, such as distribution centres, warehouses, branch offices and retail chains.

As with all other fault-tolerant ftServer models, the 2300 system provides end-users with the highest levels of component and sub-system redundancy and uptime reliability. The design has been radically re-engineered, and is the first to use the Virtual Technician Module. This remote access adaptor, with its own power and network connections, is Stratus` next-generation out-of-band system management processor. Regardless of the server`s operational state, the module enables a service engineer to perform advanced remote diagnosis, troubleshooting and remediation.

"Stratus has taken 99.999 uptime reliability and operational simplicity beyond the data centre, beyond the departmental server and to the outer reaches of the distributed computing model," says Sharod.

"Light Edge is the perfect partner to introduce the 2300 to the South African market as it has a strong heritage in platform integration. Using this knowledge and expertise, consultants will be in a position to support clients in designing and deploying appropriate hardware platforms, such as the 2300, to meet their needs," says Grant Poulton, managing director of Light Edge Technology.

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Light Edge

Established in 1993, Light Edge Technology is a national IT distributor and hardware platform integration specialist, which provides a wide range of leading brand hardware and software products and peripherals. Headquartered in Cape Town, the company has a national footprint with regional offices and showrooms in Johannesburg, Durban, Port Elizabeth, Nelspruit and Windhoek. Through this national network, it offers clients superior products and systems from recognised names such as Intel, Stratus, Rose, Canon, SMC Networks, MSI, QCA, Aten, Transcend, Microsoft, Datafab and others. For more information on Light Edge Technology and its products, please visit www.lightedge.co.za.

Editorial contacts

Sarah Rice
Sentient Communications
(021) 422 4275
David Musikanth
Light Edge Technology
(021) 510 8270
david@lightedge.co.za