NEC INTROS CONTINUOUS AVAILABILITY, FAULT TOLERANT SERVER SERIES IN NORTH AMERICA.

NEC Computers Inc., has announced a new line of Fault Tolerant servers for the North American marketplace. The NEC Express5800/ft series is based on Intel Corporation's Pentium III processors and runs on Microsoft's Windows 2000 Advanced Server operating system.

NEC's Express5800/ft series provides users with continuous availability, which means the servers are designed to prevent interruption of service, data loss and data corruption in the event of a hardware problem or maintenance servicing. The systems are also uniquely designed for easy implementation, as they require only typical hardware or software configuration and support standard Windows applications. These features help to minimize IT staff training requirements and enable the use of commercially available software, which helps reduce total cost of ownership.

"NEC's fault tolerant servers create a new opportunity for Value Added Resellers seeking higher margin sales and service contracts," said Vernon Turner, International Data Corporation (IDC). "In addition, for end users that would not consider traditional high-availability systems because of the cost, complexity and administration, the Express 5800/ft series provides a compelling alternative to high-priced cluster systems for the first time."

All of NEC's new fault tolerant servers are based on fault tolerant technology licensed from Stratus Technologies. NEC's first available fault tolerant server, the Express5800/320La, is available through select Value Added Resellers (VARs) in North America. Additional fault tolerant servers will be announced by NEC through 2002.

"Using Microsoft Windows 2000 Advanced Server in continuously available systems is a very strong cost of-ownership proposition," said Bob Ellsworth, lead product manager, Windows .NET Server, Microsoft Corp. "Businesses can use widely available applications rather than costly proprietary software. The savings goes straight to the bottom line. And that equation doesn't consider the new types of applications available to businesses that want continuously available systems. Adding continuous availability with application flexibility and cost savings can translate directly into a significant competitive advantage."

The Express5800/ft series employs a unique design that allows all processing and input/output (I/O) commands to run on redundant components in lockstep. The servers include multiple CPU processing modules, multiple I/O-PCI modules, power supplies and hard disk drive (HDDs) running in what is called an "Active/Active" mode. The redundant components in each module process identical data at the same time. In the event of a hardware failure or hardware error, the defective module is instantly isolated without losing memory state or processing instructions. The end result is a far higher level of system integrity and stability when compared to non-fault-tolerant systems.

In contrast, typical high-availability system designs such as cluster systems are designed to recover from failure quickly, losing memory and potentially corrupting data in the process.

"Clustered systems, conventional servers or legacy fault tolerant systems have been the choices to date for companies that strive to have reliable and available servers to run their business," said Mike Mitsch, director, enterprise computing, NEC Computers Inc. "These options can be expensive, difficult to administer or lacking in high availability features. The Express5800/320La is a breakthrough product for NEC in every one of those considerations. It is designed for users that require high availability and data integrity."

NEC Computers' Express5800/ft server series expands the use of fault tolerant systems into branch office and infrastructure intensive enterprise environments, back office retail environments, and the small- to medium-sized enterprise, among others. In all of these applications, NEC's low entry price allows fault tolerant technology to be used in applications where high availability systems may not have been possible before.

Traditional use of fault tolerant technology has been in financial services and communications, where a server outage can cost a company millions of dollars. In those environments fault tolerant systems can cost up to $200,000 or more. The NEC Express5800/ft server series addresses business applications where downtime may cost less, but are equally critical to the businesses that use them.

"Intel-based servers featuring Stratus' fault tolerant server technology offer customers scalability, reliability and performance at an affordable price," said Tom Garrison, Director of Marketing for Intel's Enterprise Platforms Marketing group. "NEC's new Intel-based server series is a great example of an entirely new benchmark for availability in Intel-based servers at the sub-$20K price point."

NEC's Express5800/320La employs two single-CPU processing modules, two I/O modules, two I/O-PCI modules and two power supplies in a compact housing. Dual processing modules, with each module containing two CPUs, are expected to be available in Q4 of 2001. As the first in NEC's series of fault tolerant servers, the Express5800/320La showcases the features and benefits offered by continuously available server technology. Many hardware and software features will be shared by additional fault tolerant servers introduced by NEC into 2002. [sections]