NEC Adds Red Hat Option To Fault-Tolerant Server

The Intel Xeon-based Express5800/320Ma high-availability server now is certified for Red Hat Linux, according to Mike Mitsch, general manager of alliances and strategy for NEC's solutions platform group. The new Linux server will enable NEC partners to offer high-availability features on a variety of applications that are popular with the open-source platform, he said.

NEC has been offering a proprietary version of Linux on its servers for the telecommunications market, but the company hasn't released it broadly because it would be difficult to implement an effective support structure, Mitsch said.

NEC was waiting for the mainstream distributions of Linux to add enhancements, such as memory management and certain system-management features for high availability, before implementing it on the fault-tolerant servers, he added. NEC will support the pre-installed version, or solution providers can do their own install.

In addition, NEC is offering a promotion on Linux installations. Solution providers that order an NEC system with Linux pre-installed will save $200 on the software and get an upgrade from weekday-based technical support to 24-hour tech support at no additional charge, Mitsch said.