Obsidian Systems and Stratus Technologies have announced a partnership that will see the launch of high availability Stratus ftServer systems (fault-tolerant server), running Red Hat Enterprise Linux, into the South African market.
Says Dick Sharod, country manager for Stratus Computer Technologies: "We will be announcing a new set of Linux-based offerings later this month. Obsidian will be our route to market in South Africa."
He explains that Stratus has provided Linux solutions before. "In the past, our Linux servers were focused on the telecommunications market. Now we want to make a similar platform available to all enterprise customers," he says.
In selecting a local partner for the release of Linux-based fault-tolerant servers, Stratus selected the South African Linux expert, Obsidian Systems. "We are pleased to be partnering with Obsidian in bringing an absolutely robust Linux offering to the market," enthuses Sharod. "Stratus is the availability company and we are now able to extend our offerings to customers in the Linux space by working with Obsidian."
"Many customers in the market want to move to the Red Hat platform," he continues. "But, until now, have been hesitant, due to a lack of faith in the underlying Intel architecture. We remove this problem, providing confidence in the underlying platform and taking care of the technical criteria, leaving the customer with a cost and time saving experience."
By partnering with Stratus, Obsidian Systems will be the only provider of a fault-tolerant Linux offering in the market.
Says Riaan van Niekerk, systems architect for Obsidian Systems: "We will not only be providing customers with the Red Hat Linux based ftServer range, but also with all the services they may require in terms of consulting, maintenance and the like. Should they require just the server solution, we will provide this, but we are also able to add value to customers via our expertise in Red Hat Enterprise Linux solutions."
He continues to describe the ftServer offerings. "These are destined for mission-critical server environments," enthuses Van Niekerk. "Especially where conventional clustering is not an option because customers can not afford even the shortest of down-times."
Fault-tolerant servers from Stratus are known for their purpose-built availability. While other companies provide availability servers, they are mostly home-grown solutions. Stratus, however, offers availability in the box, from the ground up. While Stratus takes care of the technical aspects of designing and constructing the systems, the customer is left with a simply maintained and operated server solution.
"The fault-tolerant servers allow customers to maximise the availability of their computing environment without added levels of complexity, as the clustering middleware is no longer needed," he continues. "This is achieved with mirroring on the hardware layer."
Van Niekerk concludes that Obsidian looks forward to working with Stratus in bringing these exciting offerings to the South African market. For more information, contact Obsidian Systems on 0860 4 LINUX.
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