DEC yesterday filled out its fault-tolerant systems strategy by adding a complete range of high availability, fault-tolerant products to its hitherto solitary offering, the VAXft Model 310, launched last year as the VAXft 3000 Model 310 (CI No 1,374). The new products include a low-end machine rated at 2.4 VAX Units of Performance, VUPs, the VAXft Model 110, which is based on two VAX 3100s, with up to 96Mb internal memory and 4Gb storage, and with starting prices from UKP60,000. DEC says the machine will open up the fault-tolerant market to the reseller market, and widen the market from the traditional area of finance. Then comes the existing 310, rated at 3.8 VUPs. The 410, based on the VAX 4000 series, is a 6 VUPs and 16 transactions per second machine with up to 128Mb memory and 12Gb storage; it costs from UKP120,000. The 610 has the same processor but comes in a 60 high cabinet for computer rooms, and has a maximum of 24Gb storage, from UKP140,000. Top of the range is the 612, a dual host system rated at 12 VUPs and 25 TPS, which also takes up to 24Gb storage, and costs from UKP234,000, or UKP850,000 for a fully configured system. All will be available from the summer, except the Model 110, available 30 days from order. For the future, DEC plans to add VAXcluster support for the range, and Fibre Distributed Data Interface support. DEC claims the systems are far more than just two VAXes bolted together, as they feature a high performance crosslink between mem ory, with CPU and registers working in lockstep. DEC says that although it’s been late with fault-tolerant machines, the fact that the range is integrated into its main line compu ting strategy gives it the edge over IBM or specialists such as Tandem Computers Inc and Stratus Computer Inc. But Ultrix/Unix-based fault- tolerant systems, originally promis ed within a year of the 310 launch in February 1990, now no longer seems to be on the cards. VAX syst ems marketing manager Malcolm Garst ang said that problems with a stand ard approach to file and record loc king, and the fact that Unix was not designed for commercial applicati ons, meant that DEC would stick to VMS products, and address open syst ems by adding Posix and X/Open Port ability Guide 3 compliance to VMS.
