Fault-tolerant server maker Stratus Technologies has introduced a new two-way line based on dual-core Intel Xeon processors, and said the range will remove the need for four-way products.

Stratus’s ftServer W Series 5700 rack-mounted systems use 2.8GHz Xeon dual-core chips with Stratus’s own chipsets and run Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.

The servers are intended as hosts for applications demanding very high availability and use replicated components to make a pair of identical servers in one chassis. Each half of the pair processes software instructions simultaneously.

The new servers have two processor sockets, each of which can house a dual-core processor, supporting up to four processor cores for each half of the system.

Its advocates see this model as an alternative approach to clustering for failover. “Dual-core really allows us to grow performance and put more workloads onto a single box at less cost,” said Denny Lane, Stratus product management director.

Lane added that the two-way dual-core models would spell the end of Stratus’s four-way single-core offerings.

“There will be no four-way [Stratus servers] in the short term,” Lane explained. “Four-way is starting to fall off dramatically as people are building grids and other ways to get high performance without the big boxes.”

While some server makers favour AMD’s Opteron processor for multicore designs, Lane said Intel’s processor architecture was better suited to his firm’s needs.

Available immediately, the server has a Virtual Technician remote-access controller that links to Stratus’s ActiveService Network. It also supports the imminent arrival of the Stratus Active Upgrade online patching service.