Stratus outlines new fault-tolerant storage kit and multicore servers

Stratus is preparing new 6TB Fibre Channel disk arrays and own-brand servers with multicore chips

Fault-tolerant server specialist Stratus has announced details of its first Stratus-branded storage system, due this summer.

At its StratusWorld user conference in Las Vegas this week, the firm also announced details of forthcoming dual-core and quad-core server systems, codenamed Fusion, to be launched around Christmas. The quad-core servers are among the first to be announced by any server maker and mark the beginning of an industry-wide transition to multicore processors.

Denny Lane, Stratus director of product marketing, said, "The Fusion servers will be our fourth-generation products, targeted for delivery at the very end of this year or the start of next year. Currently we use the Paxville dual-core chip and single core chips. These new servers will use only multicore chips. The low-end will use Intel Woodcrest dual-core, and the high-end will use Intel's Clovertown four core processors. All the new systems will be two-socket multicore designs."

Lane also gave details of new Stratus branded 6TB Fibre Channel disk arrays. "In September we will be releasing hardware Raid, which is fully fault-tolerance and comes with high-performance cache," said Lane.

To comply with new European legislation governing the removal of hazardous substances, the Raid systems will not use a battery-backed cache, but will instead rely on a combination of capacitors and Flash memory to save data in the event of a power loss.

Lane said the Raid would be used for both storage and backup and supports a mix of 15,000rpm Serial-attached SCSI (SAS) and lower-performance Serial ATA (Sata) drives.

"We'll support 500GB SATA drives, giving 6TB, and can stack three units to give 18TB of storage," Lane added. The disk array will feature some novel high-availability features. For example, LUNs can be expanded and the controller firmware upgraded while the array is online.

In the event of a hardware fault the unit can also automatically contact Stratus to order spare parts for next-day delivery. However, snapshot capabilities are modest. The unit can take 16 snapshots of the entire array, plus eight snapshots of each LUN. It will first be offered for Stratus's Linux-based systems, and Windows support will be added to coincide with the launch of the new Fusion multicore servers, said Lane.

Prices and the product name have not yet been set, but an entry-level configuration is likely to cost around $10,000 (£5,760).