* NEC’s fault-tolerant mid-range server
NEC Solutions last week rolled out a mid-range server for customers that want a highly fault-tolerant environment.
The Express5800/320Lc includes ExpressCluster Self Recovery Edition (SRE), software that performs both hardware and software monitoring.
NEC claims that software malfunctions are responsible for 20% of server failures. ExpressCluster SRE offers automated restart capabilities of most applications and portions of the operating systems.
ExpressCluster SRE ships with systems that have either Windows or no operating system installed. It monitors device drivers and operating system resources and restarts them if they stall or fail. It can be tied to the server’s remote monitoring capabilities.
The Express5800/320Lc uses a dual-modular architecture in which CPUs, memory, disk drives, I/O and power supplies are paired. This architecture lets the server be used for applications that require non-stop operations. In the event of a component failure, systems operation continues on the redundant component.
The Express5800/320Lc can be attached to NEC’s S280 storage subsystem. It has redundant virtual I/O drivers for failover and supports the dynamic resynchronization of memory and processors. Built on two Intel XeonMP 2.8-GHz processors, the Express5800/320Lc also has 512K bytes of secondary cache, as much as 6G bytes of memory and almost 312G bytes of hard disk space. While the Expres5800/320LC ships in a standard diskless configuration, it can ship with an optional 311G-byte internal disk drive.
It is housed in a 4U high chassis. The server runs Windows Server 2003.
NEC also offers the low-end two-way 320Lb and the high-end four-processor 340Hb. The NEC Express5800/320Lc, which is available now, starts at $25,000.
