Fujitsu/Intel Beef Up Linux support in server line

By Russell Redman, CRN
iApplianceWeb
(01/26/03, 03:15:05 PM EDT)

Santa Clara, Ca. -- To ensure the kind of 5 and 6 nines levels of reliability and uptime that mission critical enterprise Web Services applications now require, Fujitsu and Intel plan to co-develop a family of servers that will run on both Linux and the Microsoft Windows operating system.

Plans call for Fujitsu to make Intel Xeon DP- and MP-based systems available by the end of next year, the companies reported. Larger systems based on future versions of the Intel Itanium 64-bit processor family are expected to come out by the end of 2005.

The new Fujitsu systems are designed to scale up to sophisticated, 128 processor-capable mainframe-class systems. Fujitsu said the new Intel-based servers will complement its Unix- and mainframe-based, mission-critical enterprise platform products, which include the PrimePower Unix-based server and GS Series mainframe.

To support the Intel server effort and help drive its Linux business strategy, announced last October, Fujitsu said it has created a new Linux systems organizational structure under its Enterprise Systems Group. The new organization, which includes more than 300 engineers, will focus on providing hardware and software to improve the reliability, availability and scalability of Linux-based enterprise systems. In turn, the Linux unit will leverage Fujitsu's mission-critical systems expertise, including interconnect, clustering, autonomous systems and grid computing technologies, the company said.

To promote business opportunities in the mission-critical server arena, Fujitsu and Intel aim to work jointly with the Linux community to enhance Linux reliability, functionality and performance. The companies also said they plan to use Intel's suite of software tools to speed efforts with key ISVs to optimize Linux applications on Fujitsu's Intel-based systems.

"We see great opportunities from this new collaboration with Intel to extend our mission-critical enterprise solutions to the fast-growing Linux space and to be the world's first vendor to bring such Intel-based systems to the market," Tadayasu Sugita, corporate senior executive vice president and CTO at Fujitsu, said in a statement. "Adding Linux systems as a third pillar of our high-performance server business will enable us to provide our customers with a full range of mission-critical platform options to optimally support their diverse enterprise application needs."

The alliance will bring Xeon- and Itanium-based Fujitsu systems to higher-performance, mainframe-level environments, according to Mike Fister, senior vice president and general manager of Intel's Enterprise Platforms Group. "This collaboration in hardware technology, software tools, enterprise applications and solutions will deliver Intel-based servers that match the reliability of proprietary systems of any size, while offering dramatic performance increases and cost savings," Fister said in a statement.

Go to www.intel.com or www.fujitsu.com for more information on this product.

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