More News from BrainShare... Novell Rounds Up Cluster Partners
Novell Rounds Up Cluster Partners
(03/26/97; 7:00 p.m. EST)
By Clare Haney, TechWire
SALT LAKE CITY -- It takes a team to build a cluster, according to Novell.
The networking giant named the first eight third-party partners it's working with to develop its Wolf Mountain clustering technologies at the BrainShare developers conference held here Wednesday.
Clustering, which is the grouping together of two or more machines, has been used by data center managers to ensure that IT operations stay up and running. Several machines are grouped together so they can be managed as a single entity. If one machine fails, the other kicks in and processes the applications on the failed machine.
"Wolf Mountain can define clustering in the same way NetWare defined servers," said Vic Langford, senior vice president of Internet Strategies at Novell, Orem, Utah. "The opportunity is clearly there for the taking." Novell demonstrated an early version of the software on Wednesday.
Dolphin, G2 Networks and Tandem Computers are the server companies providing Novell with some of the underlying technologies required for advanced distributed clustering, such as high-speed interconnection networking. In the applications sphere, Novell is drawing on Oracle's Parallel Server database for data storage and management capabilities and Computer Associates' Cheyenne subsidiary for its expertise in backup systems.
Houston's Compaq is helping out with its perspective on single high-volume servers, while Unisys in Blue Bell, Pa., is ensuring that the Wolf Mountain code will be really portable to other operating systems, particularly those in the mainframe arena.
Novell has also established a close relationship with Intel to make sure that its clustering technology can run on today's 32-bit systems and the upcoming 64-bit Merced systems as soon as they appear.
The vendor has also been working with Carl Amdahl, though the company Amdahl founded has yet to commit to Wolf Mountain. Novell is expecting to announce other advocates for its clustering drawn from the PC hardware vendors, database and applications arenas shortly.
Two of the eight partners -- Compaq and Tandem -- are also partners of Microsoft's rival clustering technology, Wolfpack.
"We were attracted to the clean sheet approach Novell has taken to clustering in building software from the ground up," said Justin Rattner, director of Intel's server architecture laboratories. Since Novell started its Wolf Mountain project a year-and-a-half ago, the two companies have collaborated on its design and taken part in periodic design reviews, Rattner said.
Novell said it already offers fault-tolerant clustering support with its SFT III software, adding that Microsoft's Wolfpack I -- in its second beta release and due to ship in June -- will catch up with SFT III.
Novell, however, did not commit to any shipping dates or a release road map for Wolf Mountain, saying the technologies are still very much at the development stage.
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Lot's of interesting names in the industry. The one I pay particular attention to is Intel.
"...Novell has also established a close relationship with Intel to make sure that its clustering technology can run on today's 32-bit systems and the upcoming 64-bit Merced systems as soon as they appear..."
This looks good for the future....here's that 64-bit platform product that we discussed many month's ago (re: Dec Apha chip and other RISC chips). It appears that Novell's OS will work with Intel's 64-bit Merced product. <...um..um..very good>.
EKS
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Also noted (March 27, 1997)... Corel Back In Black
Corel Back In Black
(03/26/97; 5:30 p.m. EST)
By Larry Dignan, TechInvestor
OTTAWA, Ontario -- Corel said Wednesday that it posted a first quarter profit of $1 million, or a penny a share, compared to a $6.6 million loss in the same period a year ago.
But Corel's results still fell short of Wall Street estimates, which ranged from 2 to 3 cents a share. Corel had revenue in the quarter of $93.7 million, a 157 percent increase over 1996's first quarter of $36.4 million.
As at Feb. 28, 1997, Corel had $12 million in cash and short-term investments.
Dr. Michael Cowpland, president and chief executive officer of Corel, said he was pleased with the results, and revenue was on target. The Canadian company will release its WordPerfect Suite8 in May and Corel Office for Java in the summer.
In the first quarter, Corel announced plans to spin off a new company that will focus on videoconferencing and network computing to focus on the corporate market.
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Do you think with Marangie as a Board Member helped Corel's CEO Cowpland help (advise) this profitable turnaround? Notice that they plan to spinn off a new company that will focus on videoconferencing...Didn't Novell state that this was perhaps one sector they might 'acquire a business' in? I would rather see them stay focused on the networking side w/o video at this time.
EKS
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