News

Stratus Launches ftServer 3200

• By Scott Bekker
• 09/04/2001

The fault-tolerant computing company now has two servers under $25,000, the price point that IDC recently identified as one threshold for volume sales in the server market.

The new Stratus ftServer 3200 uses Stratus' technology but is built by NEC Corp., which unveiled the server for the Japanese market in May.

Stratus enhances the hardware with its own service package, which includes a remote service network that notes when redundant parts within a system have failed and express mails the parts to the customer. Stratus will sell a one-processor ftServer 3200 for $18,443.

A two-way SMP version will cost $20,442. Both versions come with Stratus' technology for five nines of availability.

Stratus also cut the price on its ftServer 5200 to $24,300 for a one-processor version with five nines of availability. The new price is $4,000 less than the company charged when it launched the server, its first for the Wintel market, in June.

In a report released in late June, IDC analysts stated that the fast growth within the Intel processor server market is for servers priced at less than $25,000. But the analyst firm said getting prices below $10,000 is the key threshold.

"With advancements in the lower end of the server price bands such as fault tolerant systems priced well below $10,000, IDC believes that this may be a catalyst for further change in the server market," the report stated.

Both the Stratus ftServer 3200 and 5200 are two-processor-capable servers that run Windows 2000 Advanced Server. The 5200 comes in a much larger box, taking up 19U of rack space compared with 8U for the 3200. But the 5200 is much more expandable in terms of storage and also can be purchased in a six nines of availability version.

The 5200 carries Pentium III Xeon processors, while the 3200 uses standard Pentium III chips. Stratus will also offer field upgrades to four-way SMP on the ftServer 5200 when it ships that technology.

Stratus has been shipping the ftServer 3200 for a few weeks. The two-way version and the rack-mount version will be available within 60 days, according to Stratus.