Legato Announces Mirroring Extension for Microsoft Cluster
Service
Legato Announces Mirroring Extension
for Microsoft Cluster Service; Servers Running MCS can now be
Separated by Miles in a Campus Environment
PALO ALTO, Calif.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--March 20, 2000--Legato
Systems, Inc. (Nasdaq:LGTO), the leader in enterprise storage
management software, today announced Legato Mirroring Extension(TM)
for Microsoft Cluster Service(TM) (MCS). This innovative product
extends the reach of MCS by providing flexible configuration options
to enterprise, medium-sized businesses and branch offices in remote
locations. Legato Mirroring Extension eliminates the single point of
failure of the data set when the server site is destroyed or
inaccessible because the clustered servers can be in different
locations.
Legato Mirroring Extension was developed and tested with key
strategic partners. Unisys Corporation provided significant input and
extensively tested Unisys e-ction Enterprise servers throughout
product development. IBM has demonstrated separation of MCS servers
over 10km with IBM Netfinity servers. It is through the expertise and
help of strategic partners like IBM and Unisys that Legato can bring
enterprise solutions to market.
"We have worked closely with Microsoft to meet all of their
development requirements, and used our years of experience in
mirroring to develop a flexible, robust mirroring extension that
maximizes an organization's investment in MCS," said Terry Dickson,
vice president of Product Marketing, Legato Systems. "Legato Mirroring
Extension not only broadens the configuration choices for customers,
it provides monitoring services of key MCS and Mirroring Extension
services to allow administrators to proactively monitor their critical
server uptime."
"The fact that IBM Netfinity servers were chosen for early beta
testing and to debut the product is no surprise," said Dr. Tom
Bradicich, director of architecture and design for IBM Netfinity
servers. "The Legato mirroring extension is a powerful complement to
our X-Architecture. Netfinity servers are the first to extend MCS
beyond two nodes. With Legato's extensions and disaster recovery
capability, Netfinity cluster solutions continue to set the high
availability standard."
"Unisys e-ction Enterprise Servers are designed for our mission
critical enterprise customers. Combining these robust servers with the
data protection expertise of Legato and the Legato Mirroring Extension
for Microsoft Cluster Service will offer our customers a much needed
disaster tolerance clustering solution," stated Don Johnson, vice
president and general manager, Unisys Enterprise Server Business.
"Microsoft is excited that Legato's Mirroring Extension product
offers our mutual customers additional flexibility when deploying
mission-critical applications on Microsoft Cluster Service," said
Michael Gambier, Group Product Manager for Enterprise Server Products
at Microsoft Corp. "Legato's solution, built on Windows NT Server 4.0
Enterprise Edition, offers customers a new disaster recovery
alternative for all of the services and applications that take
advantage of the Microsoft Cluster Service application programming
interfaces."
Legato Mirroring Extension is an added-value solution for MCS
with a mirrored storage configuration to ensure integrity of data on
both servers in the cluster. The two clustered nodes each have their
own storage such as internal drives, drive arrays or an external
storage device(s). In addition, storage can be implemented in a SCSI,
fibre channel or SAN to meet the needs of all customer sizes who value
availability of data, applications and their e-business systems. If
one server in the pair fails, the surviving server automatically runs
the data and applications for the failed server as well as its own
data and applications.
Legato Mirroring Extension includes Legato SNMP Cluster
Monitoring Services that enables low-overhead SNMP monitoring of MCS,
Windows NT event log, Windows NT and application servers over a LAN or
WAN. The monitoring services provides a single, easy-to-use view of
the clustered environment to enable administrators to customize
specific actions based on designated events. SNMP Cluster Monitoring
Services works standalone or with third party SNMP consoles to allow
administrators to proactively manage critical server uptime.
"IT application administrators continue to tell me with great
anxiety that their Windows NT-based applications are mission critical
and they need continuous operations," said Michael Peterson, president
of Strategic Research Corporation. "Those in the know have realized
the requirement of disaster tolerance as an essential element of their
total operation. If your business operations can't afford a site-level
failure, you must implement a robust remote clustering and data
mirroring solution such as Legato's Mirroring Extension for MCS. The
alternative is 'disaster.'"
Microsoft Cluster Service is supported by Microsoft only when
used on a validated cluster configuration. For a current list of
validated cluster configurations see the Microsoft Hardware
Compatibility List (HCL). IBM, Unisys and other OEM's intend to
certify Mirroring Extension configurations through Microsoft's HCT
certification program.
Pricing and Availability
Legato Mirroring Extension will be available March 2000. The
price is $5,499 for a MCS pair and includes software maintenance and
24X7 telephone support. The product will be available from Legato
channel partners and OEM's such as Unisys Corporation. Microsoft
Windows 2000 version will be available later this year. |
