NEC and Microsoft Advance Enterprise Availability on Windows Server 2008

NEC and Microsoft Advance Enterprise Availability on Windows Server 2008

NEC-Microsoft Enterprise Alliance Demonstrates Dynamic Partitioning Hot Replace Capability at WinHEC 2007; Companies Continue to Generate Greater Reliability, Availability and Serviceability for Mission Critical Systems

Santa Clara, Calif.- NEC Corporation of America, a premier provider of IT, network and identity management solutions, today announced that the advanced architecture of the NEC Express5800/1320Xf server will be utilized for the world’s first demonstration of an autonomic “hot replace” function of the dynamic hardware partitioning capabilities of Windows Server 2008 (Longhorn). The demonstration is an example of how businesses can now affordably experience mainframe-class reliability, availability and serviceability.

“The increased reliability and availability that dynamic partitioning hot replace provides is crucial to mission critical applications such as those we deliver to our customers,” said Bill Michael, vice president of Information Technology, Online Resources Corporation. “With more than nine million of consumers accessing our systems day and night to process financial transactions, we must have our Intel Itanium-based servers from NEC available and performing around the clock.”

The increasing demand for businesses, regardless of size, to have data centers and applications that are accessible and able to deliver services around the clock means there is a greater need for servers with mainframe levels of availability.

“The joint efforts of NEC and Microsoft to deliver high-end capabilities such as dynamic partitioning to the world of Windows servers means that businesses can have mainframe-class reliability, availability and serviceability without the high cost,” said Barb Goldworm, president and chief analyst, Focus Consulting. “Leveraging these leading-edge technologies brings a cost-effective solution to an age-old problem.”

To help IT professionals improve the availability, reliability and performance of their infrastructure, Windows Server 2008 includes simplified failover clustering, dynamic partitioning and auto-tuning networking features to automatically manage system resources and help ensure that customers have uninterrupted and optimized access to their company network.

The dynamic hardware partitioning functionality available in Windows Server 2008, currently available as a public beta, provides the ability to actively add memory, processor and I/O devices while the system is running for enhanced scalability. At the same time, the functionality also improves reliability, availability and serviceability (RAS) by allowing “hot replace” on systems to avoid scheduled maintenance downtime.

“Windows Server 2008 will help organizations increase the security, flexibility and manageability of their server infrastructure while saving time and reducing costs,” said Bill Laing, general manager, Windows Server Division at Microsoft Corp. “Windows Server 2008 for Itanium-based systems, along with SQL Server 2005, will offer customers the highest levels of performance, reliability and scalability for mission-critical applications. Our close collaboration with NEC has been a crucial component in the development of next-generation technologies such as dynamic partitioning in Microsoft Windows Server 2008.”

Designed as NEC’s next-generation mainframe architecture, processing and I/O modules of the NEC Express5800/1000 series of servers can be partitioned at the hardware level to create multiple physically-isolated servers. Through this architecture, the NEC Express5800/1000 servers have the unique capability of providing hardware-assisted memory state copy of a failing cell. This assisted “memory copy” capability accelerates the hot replace function of dynamic partitioning within Microsoft Windows Server 2008.

A Focus Consulting analyst brief titled “Dynamic Hardware Partitioning - NEC, Microsoft, Intel” can be found at www.necam.com/servers/files/NEC_Brief_DynamicHardwarePartitioning.pdf.