Novell set to launch clustering technology

ovell is putting the final touches on its first NetWare-based clustering product, an offering that the company plans to get out the door by the end of September.

Novell High Availability Server, formerly referred to as Phase One of the Orion project, will provide automatic failover capabilities between two NetWare 4.X servers. This software requires shared SCSI disk space and supports a high-speed Fibre Channel interconnect between the two servers. Existing NetWare applications can run on top of the clustered nodes unaltered.

According to product marketing manager Michael Bryant, this software differs from other NetWare-based high-availability products on the market, such as Vinca's Standby Server for NetWare, in that Novell's product supports an active-active configuration. This means that both clustered nodes can be fully operational until a failover situation occurs.

Phase Two of the Orion project will allow multiple NetWare 4.X and 5.0 servers to be clustered for higher system availability and load-balancing purposes.

Novell is expected to make more details about this phase of the project available once the company ships Phase One.

Novell High Availability Server will cost $3,895 for a two-node license.

- Christine BurnsÊÊÊ