(Source: MARKETWIRE)In cooperation with Microsoft Corp., Stratus Technologies announced today that it is offering Microsoft SQL Server 2008 with its newest ftServer(R) fault-tolerant platform. This software/server combination delivers a robust, continuously available infrastructure that scales with customers' business requirements and delivers predictable performance to users accessing critical business applications. Stratus delivers level-one support to customers who purchase the database software from the company, with escalation as needed to Microsoft; Stratus also services the server and OS, representing a single point of customer contact for rapid issue resolution.

Running Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Standard or Enterprise Editions, Stratus ftServer platform reliability surpasses comparable competitive database implementations using standard x86 servers at a fraction of the cost. Compared to alternative hardware failover configurations, the ftServer system is completely self-contained and ready to work out of the box with no software modifications and scripting required. By improving the simplicity of operation and removing the need to cluster for node availability, the user is freed up to take greater advantage of the flexibility and enterprise features of SQL Server.

The entire ftServer family provides field-proven uptime of nearly 99.9999 percent, the industry's most reliable Intel processor-based platform for Windows-based applications. By also using Stratus' Active Upgrade(TM) software with ftServer systems, customers can reduce both planned and unplanned downtime for online software upgrades and critical operating system hot fixes without having to take the server or application offline for extended periods.

"Among the wide range of availability requirements our family of Xeon 5500 processor-powered ftServer systems can satisfy, this new server family is an ideal database engine, benefitting from increased power and performance, together with the Intel QPI architecture and plug-and-play operational simplicity," said Denny Lane, Stratus director of product management. "Having delivered affordable mainframe-class availability for critical OLTP applications since 1982, Stratus' hardware/software combination lets customers deal with a single vendor to purchase, install and support a fully integrated database solution."

Superior database availability, half the cost

Using Oracle RAC with industry-standard servers to achieve high-availability for the Oracle 11g Enterprise Edition will cost approximately 125 percent more than deploying Microsoft SQL Server 2008 Enterprise Edition on a similarly configured Stratus ftServer 6300 system(1).