Johannesburg, 23 Jan 2024
When it comes to availability, the gold standard for server architecture is five nines. This level of reliability equates to five minutes of downtime a year. All the enterprise has to do is look after five minutes – the rest is in the capable hands of high-functioning server architecture. Now, with the launch of the Stratus ztC Endurance, that time drops to just three seconds with seven nines of availability.
The Stratus ztC Endurance was introduced to over 50 partners and customers at an exclusive launch event at the Gerotek Testing Facilities, in Pretoria, where the guests tested high-performance test cars to mirror the product’s resilience in challenging business situations. There was palpable excitement in the room when they saw the product for the first time and as they listened to the Stratus team presenting the company’s future plans for the product.
“The ztC Endurance was named for its ability to deliver exactly that – endurance,” says Richard Sharod, Stratus EMEA Vice-President. “Organisations want to protect their revenue, their reputations and their continuity with a technology they can trust, and this is what we have built with our new server. It has undergone more than three years of research and development to ensure that it keeps its seven nine promise alongside simple serviceability within a predictive architecture that also delivers exceptional performance.”
Stratus ztC Endurance also promises simplicity, serviceability, zero-touch compute and autonomy. A collection of capabilities and features that are designed to ensure organisations can rely on the tech without the complexity. As Sharod emphasised at the launch: “It was important that the ztC Endurance be simple to install, adding no complications to the business. It sits comfortably within the organisation’s architecture and is manageable by not only IT people, but operational people who are not necessarily tech savvy. A remote branch, a rig, a rural location – the server slots in without the need for a technician.”
In addition to simplicity and availability, Stratus ztC Endurance is also autonomous, capable of monitoring itself and notifying relevant personnel if it detects a fault or potential issue. It can ask for help. It is an automated element of protection, which allows for teams to quickly resolve any challenges before the server reaches the point of failure.
“This autonomous level of protection is one layer; the other is that the average person can replace components easily without needing to be highly technical,” says Sharod. “We don’t expect people sitting at branches and locations worldwide to suddenly become wizards at tech support. Instead, we ensure the tech can support itself.”
The server can take action should it see that a component is starting to fail – it calls the relevant support team at Stratus or an accredited partner and they then connect remotely over a secure link to verify the status of the component. Then, the replacement part is sent to the location and can be installed into the server while it is still running, ensuring zero downtime for the organisation.
“There’s no panic or the need to send engineers or fiddling with different parts,” says Sharod. “The server identifies the part, the support team identifies the issue and the replacement is installed by anyone on site without a hiccup in performance.”
Of course, this introduces perhaps one of the company’s most interesting quirks – it doesn’t allow the purchase of a server without a service contract. Arrogant? Maybe, but not when looked at in light of the cost of this purchase and the importance of uptime. The service contract is the foundation of those three critical seconds, and it is supported by 24/7 access to highly skilled teams globally. If a machine exhibits unusual behaviour at 1am, there’s a team ready to pay attention and provide a solution.
“What we’ve done with this level of serviceability and the integrated predictive architecture is unlock a level of performance that we couldn’t with our old architecture,” says Sharod. “Complexity causes problems and downtime. With this technology, we embed simplicity to ensure we deliver exceptional availability and high-end performance built on a foundation of reliability.”
Stratus ztC Endurance, arriving in South Africa in January 2024, is small, quick to deploy, easy to manage and delivers exceptional performance. As Pieter van der Merwe, Africa and Middle East Regional Manager at Stratus, said at the event: “It is a completely new architecture that unlocks availability and performance without any compromise and is a trusted solution for organisations focused on protecting their reputations, revenue and growth.”
Click on the link to read more about the Stratus ztC Endurance: https://www.stratus.com/solutions/platforms/ztc-endurance/
Share