by Deni Connor

From...

(IDG) -- This week at NetWorld+Interop, Novell will announce server clustering software for NetWare 5 networks designed to increase the availability of enterprise messaging systems, Web servers, file-and-print applications and databases.

NetWare Cluster Services for NetWare 5 will ship by the end of September. It might slow the migration of high-availability applications to Windows NT. Previously codenamed Orion II, the software is one of the first clustering products on the Intel platform to support more than two server nodes.

NetWare Cluster Services has been tested on clusters of up to eight 4-processor servers and will support as many as 32 clustered servers in the future. Microsoft Cluster Server on NT, its competitor at present, supports two 4- or 8-processor servers and Windows 2000 DataCenter. DataCenter will support up to four 8-processor servers and will ship in the second quarter of 2000.

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NetWare Cluster Services works with Novell Directory Services and any application software certified by Novell for NetWare 5.

The software has been tested with these 2- and 4-processor servers:

• Compaq ProLiant 6500 and 1850R
• Dell PowerEdge 2300 and 4300
• Hewlett-Packard NetServer LPr
• IBM Netfinity 7000 series

Each server in the cluster is active and connects with other servers via standard Fast Ethernet adapters and hubs or switches. Traffic between servers is low, consisting primarily of the heartbeat protocol servers used to signal their presence in the cluster and directory information needed to update tables maintained on each server.

The servers are also joined through a Fibre Channel hub or switch to a shared disk storage subsystem. Extra security can be maintained by implementing RAID Level 5 on the storage subsystem and storage can be dynamically allocated from server to server if required. Novell has tested NetWare Cluster Services with these disk subsystems:

• Compaq Raid Array 8000
• Data General CLARiiON
• IBM NetFinity EXP15
• XIOtech MAGNITUDE
• Dell PowerVault 650F

The cluster can be managed from a single workstation with Novell's ConsoleOne utility. ConsoleOne is a graphic utility that shows the status of the cluster, controls the configuration and is used for monitoring operations.

When a node in the cluster fails or is unavailable, any node can take over all the applications and resources of the failed node. Failures and recovery may occur automatically or manually as designated by the IT manager. Manual failovers are useful for maintenance and testing operations. When the failed node is available again, a mechanism called failback occurs.

In addition, servers using NetWare Cluster Services can be load-balanced. Load-balancing is a feature that is increasingly important as Web servers are clustered to speed access to the Internet, according to James Gruener, an analyst with the Aberdeen Group in Boston, Mass.

Applications can also be moved from one server to another before failures occur or critical applications can be concentrated onto a small number of servers to allow protection from catastrophic server failures. After failures, users will automatically be reconnected to remaining servers in the cluster.

NetWare Cluster Services software is installed on each server in the cluster and is priced by server. A source close to the company indicated that NetWare Cluster Services for NetWare 5 will start at under $5,000 per server. Novell declined to comment.