Fault-tolerant servers

The ft series fault-tolerant servers for small and medium businesses are now available, including the mid-range Express5800/320Fd-MR and entry-level Express5800/320Fd-LR.

Featuring quad-core Intel Xeon processors, the servers are claimed to reach a 20% performance improvement over the existing 320Fc-MR model. The GeminiEngine chipset synchronises redundant components, preventing CPU performance degradation due to hardware redundancy control.

The optional Active Upgrade functionality can split each server into two independently running systems, allowing one of the systems to run critical applications without interruption while Windows security patches and program updates are being installed on the other system. Instead of requiring a system reboot to finalise software updates, the servers experience a brief disruption.

The models are expected to support VMware ESX virtualisation software by September 2008. With virtualisation technology, the products will be optimised for use in infrastructure to consolidate distributed servers.