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DAILY NEWS AND INFORMATION FOR THE GLOBAL GRID COMMUNITY / MAY 26, 2003: VOL. 2 NO. 21
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Breaking News - Platforms:
Fujitsu Debuts Powerful Entry-Level Servers
Fujitsu Technology Solutions Canada Inc., a member of the worldwide group of
Fujitsu companies, announced its next generation of entry-level PRIMEPOWER
servers featuring mainframe technologies and reliability previously
unavailable on lower end computing platforms. Fujitsu's new Solaris
compatible, SPARC compliant PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 server models extend the
reach of PRIMEPOWER servers to the edge of the network, to deliver performance
to critical customer-facing systems and applications.
Fujitsu's new entry-level PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 servers deliver high
performance, high reliability, and high availability to e-business and
transaction processing applications, all with a smaller footprint than other
machines in their class. The PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 feature up to two and four
1.1 GHz processors, respectively, that perform up to six simultaneous
instructions. They offer 1 MB of on-chip Second Level Cache, fast buses, and
larger disk capacity to address a whole new set of network edge server needs.
"These servers bring the best technology from mainframe computing to
aggressively meet the needs of customers who are currently experiencing
limitations in power and performance at the entry point," said Richard
McCormack, vice president of product marketing at Fujitsu Technology
Solutions, Inc. "The low end of the server market will be redefined with the
introduction of the PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450, two server models that bring
performance and reliability to the network edge and address needs that were
previously unmet in this class."
"Fujitsu's new generation of servers bring high-end system performance to the
low end that has not been seen to date," said Vernon Turner, group vice
president, Global Enterprise Server Solutions, IDC. "As customer performance
demands continue to increase at the entry level, Fujitsu's PRIMEPOWER 250 and
450 are addressing the most urgent computing needs by giving customers
mainframe-like capabilities, reliability, and availability."
Fujitsu has developed a new self-healing and self-monitoring architecture that
is featured on the PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 servers. Unlike some systems that
require constant monitoring for signs of imminent failure, Fujitsu's new low-
end servers need no such oversight. They can also be connected via the Web,
email or private connection to remote monitoring services for very fast
turnaround on preventative maintenance, component replacement, and system
problem support. This ensures that PRIMEPOWER servers meet all the needs of
the world's most demanding applications.
"We feel confident that the advanced capabilities of Fujitsu's PRIMEPOWER 250
and 450 will provide the performance and reliability we need to better analyse
customer data for the development of predictive models," said Ronald Williams,
manager of service operations technology, Earthlink. "This information is
vital to Earthlink, and helps us maintain the outstanding customer
satisfaction for which the company is known. Fujitsu's machines offer
capabilities we'd expect from a mainframe but are available at an attractive
price and in a compact package."
Initially developed and tested for large-scale mission-critical environments,
these innovations have been embodied in all the processors and hardware
components now used across the entire global PRIMEPOWER product range.
Like their high-end family members, the PRIMEPOWER 250 and 450 provide a
unique feature called hardware instruction retry. PRIMEPOWER systems will
retry a failed instruction at the hardware level, enabling the instruction to
be retried immediately, eliminating time-consuming flushing and rebuilding of
the software buffers. This corrects 98 percent of noise-generated errors. The
new server models also offer additional parity checking functionality that
ensures that processing errors are automatically self-corrected, including
cache errors.
"The growing momentum behind the Solaris 9 Operating System is fueling growth
in the Solaris market," said Graham Lovell, marketing director, Sun
Microsystems. "The Solaris OS is the best choice for deploying secure and
robust business critical applications in today's economy."
Extended System Control Function (XSCF) technology is another feature included
in the latest additions to the PRIMEPOWER family. This enhances the
reliability level of all functions within the server to an autonomous self-
healing capability. XSCF means reduced operational costs through more
efficient systems management.
Partners Weigh In
"The introduction of the new PRIMEPOWER systems, with their improved
performance and RAS features, is good news for customers" said Dave Dargo,
vice president, System Platforms Division, Oracle. "Oracle9i Database with
Real Application Clusters on these new servers provides real business and
technology benefit by delivering a stable, highly available system that can
scale as needed."
"As a strategic partner providing leading storage software solutions and joint
support for PRIMEPOWER servers, VERITAS Software welcomes Fujitsu's extension
of mission-critical computing ability to its entire range of PRIMEPOWER
servers," said Kevin Reinis, vice president of business development and
strategic alliances, VERITAS Software. "Through tightly integrated,
interoperable solutions with our partners, VERITAS enables utility computing
in today's multi-vendor data center environments. Our products running on the
new Fujitsu servers will continue to provide customers with superior high
availability, data protection and storage management solutions for cost-
effective computing and improved service levels throughout their IT
organisation."
PRIMEPOWER 650 and 850 Upgrades
Fujitsu also today announced performance upgrades to the PRIMEPOWER 650 and
850 8-way and 16-way servers, respectively. Both systems will now feature 1.08
GHz SPARC64 V processors, enabling tremendous speed for business-critical UNIX
enterprise applications. The two servers will see performance upgrades up to
1.35 GHz in future product enhancements.
Web site: www.ftsi.fujitsu.com/primepower
Web site: www.ftsi.fujitsu.com/
Web site: www.ftsci.fujitsu.com/
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