Stratus Technologies today announced that its new high-availability Stratus Avance Software 3.0 now includes support for Intel Xeon E5 "Sandy Bridge" processor-powered servers. Companies that use Intel Xeon E5 servers manufactured by HP, IBM, Dell and Intel can have peace of mind knowing that Avance software proactively detects and prevents downtime and ensures that applications run without interruption.

Avance 3.0 can now support up to 24 virtual machines (VM) on a single licensed high-availability server platform, representing a 50% increase over its predecessor. The improvement in VM density can lower operational, maintenance and management costs by enabling more consolidation of servers and applications.

Additional features include:

• Support for Intel Modular Server (IMS) systems, built on Intel Multi-Flex technology, to create a high-availability blade platform between two IMS chassis
  
  
• Faster snapshotting to reduce VM back-up time and downtime exposure
  
  
• System manageability enhancements that improve the user experience
  

"Adding IT talent is expensive and application downtime is disruptive, and our clients very much want to minimize both," said Frank Vincentelli, chief technology officer at Integrated IT Systems, a computing services firm and Stratus4Uptime channel partner. "The uptime performance that Avance delivers, due largely to its self-monitoring and built-in operations management features, is an exceptionally effective and affordable way to not simply minimize, but to avoid downtime and staffing. More server choices and the increased virtualized workload capacity of Avance 3.0 software mean that customers can apply high-availability computing to protect more of their critical business operations."

Transparent fault-handling
Avance and Avance Foundation software are the only HA solutions that automatically detect, isolate and handle faults, thereby keeping applications running despite system interruptions. This self-managing, high-availability software includes a single, web-based management console that enables remote monitoring and management of servers, VMs, and network interfaces. Avance software constantly monitors system heartbeat and the health of drives, fans, power supplies, and other system components to predict faults and performance degradation. Its highly intuitive system management dashboard presents the IT administrator with detailed configuration and alert information with guidance on resolving issues. Avance allows server nodes to be geographically separated for local split-site disaster recovery. Complete product details are available at http://www.stratus.com/Products/AvanceHA.aspx.

"Avance 3.0 software is an organization's best protection against unplanned downtime and data loss for their most important applications," said Dave LeClair, Stratus director of product management and marketing. "Avance proves that high availability can be simple to achieve and manage, and affordable to implement in organizations of any size. No other HA solution offers more."