Veritas retools cluster software

Veritas has added a few new bits and pieces into the latest release of its cluster management software.

With Global Cluster Manager 3.5.1, users will find added support for some big-name products. Veritas' software will now be able to do wide-area disaster recovery for Microsoft Exchange 2000 servers and work with Hitachi's TrueCopy data replication software. In addition, Veritas is supporting IBM's naughty AIX version of Unix along with clustered Linux servers.

The product update comes just ahead of the ClusterWorld conference to be held next week in San Jose, California. All the big boys - including Sun Microsystems, Dell and Hewlett-Packard -will be at the show to promote various kinds of cluster technology.

The cluster craze has taken off in full force. Companies such as Dell push clusters as a low-cost alternative to the Unix SMPs sold by Sun, IBM and HP. Dell and big partner Oracle argue that users can achieve similar types of reliability with Lintel clusters as compared to SMPs.

Sales of business application-oriented Linux and Microsoft clusters, however, have been slow to date. Customers are dabbling with Veritas products and Oracle's 9i RAC, but major deals are few and far between.

Sun and IBM do offer similar packages with their Linux systems but have pushed harder with high-end clusters that combine Intel-based hardware and RISC processor-based systems.

For example, Sun is expected to unveil a new cluster package that includes its Intel-based V60x servers with UltraSPARC-based V210 systems and its own Sun ONE Grid Engine software.

IBM already has similar pre-packaged offerings that it sells to researchers and verticals such as oil and gas, which demand high amounts of processing power.

Veritas is among the companies trying move clusters out of the high performance computing realm and into big business. Its software now supports every major operating system and has strong back-up features for common applications such as Exchange.

The new Global Cluster Manager has gone on sale, starting at $1,495 per site. ®