IBM said Wednesday it is moving its fault-tolerant System i server options downstream.

Later this month, IBM plans to offer its high-availability option in four-way to eight-way systems. That option so far has been available only in 16-way and 32-way systems.

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George Gaylord, System i enterprise product manager at IBM, Armonk, N.Y., said the System i Capacity BackUp Edition previously was targeted at larger companies. But with more customers starting to take business continuity more seriously, demand has extended to the midmarket, he said.

"From a channel perspective, business partners can sell this downmarket to a broader set of customers," Gaylord said.

System i Capacity BackUp Edition can be used as a stand-alone backup server for fault tolerance and business continuity, or customers can buy a server with several processors and run a dedicated workload on some while reserving others for backup, according to Gaylord.

If the backup processors must be used in the event of a system failure or a scheduled downtime, IBM will allow the i5/OS that typically powers the System i to be temporarily transferred to the other processors at no additional charge, Gaylord said. Customers don't have to buy licenses for each backup processor, which could save them as much as $40,000 to $59,000 per processor, he added.