March 26, 1997,
Italics are my additions
Novell Rounds Up Cluster Partners
By Clare Haney
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."For who?
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 Check out how much FC stuff is located at the Amdahl site. 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.
Novell + New CEO from SUNW Eric Schmidt + clustering + Amdahl link + The FC content in Amdahl site=something big? |
