Hewlett-Packard debuted a new addition to its NonStop high-availability servers line-up that comes in cheaper configurations in order to try and appeal to smaller customers.

NonStop servers are used by financial services providers, telcos and other organizations that need their environments up and running even if a node fails. The NS2200, the smallest system in the product family, offers the same functionality for a much smaller price. It’s a stripped-down version of the existing NS2100 server.

“The NonStop 2100 is based on the rx2800 i2 rack-mounted server, which debuted back in April 2010with the rest of the Integrity and Superdome servers sporting Intel’s ‘Tukwila, quad-core Itanium 9300 processors,” reports The Register.  “This is a two-socket server, just like the blade servers that other Integrity machines are, but HP only puts one processor in the system and, depending on the model, only activates one, two, or four cores in that single socket.”

The idea behind this is that Hewlett-Packard doesn’t have to pay Intel a premium for more extensive servers, but instead limits how much you get out of the chip based on which configuration you have.

Hewlett-Packard is beefing up its data center portfolio. The addition of a new low-end server follows the announcement of the P10000, an all-flash 3PAR configuration that’s 80 percent more effective than the disk-based alternative. The emphasis with the array is not on high availability but on more automation and functionality – it does a better job at storing data.

The software powering P10000 automatically tiers hot and cold data to optimize performance, and will soon be able to tier information across different hardware units as well. Once Smart Cache is optimized for the array, it will be able to carry out the same task across Gen8 servers.