Enterprise open source Toolkit

Stratus rolls out fault-tolerant 64-bit Linux

Colin Barker ZDNet.co.uk

Published: 19 Jun 2006 15:45 BST

Stratus Technologies has launched its first 64-bit version of Linux across six different server models, as the open source operating system continues to progress in the enterprise market.

Based on Red Hat Enterprise Linux AS 4, the 64-bit implementation uses Intel Extended Memory 64 technology, and can run in both 32- and 64-bit modes.

Stratus, which sells fault-tolerant servers to enterprises, first announced support for Red Hat Linux in October of last year. Since then, the company has been building up its standards-based offerings, and in January announced its first fault-tolerant systems supporting Intel dual-core processors.

Stratus is hoping that offering Linux, coupled with "five nines" reliability — guaranteed 99.999 percent uptime, which is required by telecoms operators and very large businesses, especially financial firms — will help it capture the demand for increasing reliability in systems.

The company quotes figures from analysts IDC suggesting that "Linux servers [will] lead the high-availability server market with a 37.7 percent compound annual growth rate (CAGR)".

The Stratus ftServer hardware line offers "a common platform for Linux and Windows", said Stratus consultant Andrew Bailey. The Stratus-designed chipset and systems software are layered between the operating system kernel and the application.

According to Stratus, "virtually any application for the Linux operating system will run unchanged and unmodified on a supported Stratus fault-tolerant server".

Supported servers include the ftServer 2400, 4300 and dual-core 5700.