A new availability dimension beyond the field-proven 99.999% uptime protection for which Stratus servers are known

Stratus^® ftServer^® Active Upgrade technology is a first-of-its-kind technology for fault-tolerant Microsoft Windows^® operating system environments. It enables customers to perform online software upgrades and critical operating system hot fixes without having to take the server or application offline for extended periods.

The Active Upgrade technology addresses major sources of planned server downtime necessary to install upgrades and enhancements to operating systems, service packs, applications, and system software. IT departments today are particularly concerned about how to deal with the frequent hot-fix patches issued by Microsoft to protect users and ensure the security of its Windows operating system. Active Upgrade technology will make the updating process much less disruptive to business continuity.

Made possible by the new Stratus-designed chipset introduced with the third-generation ftServer systems, Active Upgrade technology enables online upgrading by splitting the fully redundant system into two independently running servers. While one server continues to run the application without interruption, software updates are applied to the other server. The two sides are then synchronized and returned to fault-tolerant operation as one logical server.