News

posted on 10 June 2008 10:12

Neverfail's new ClusterProtector product means Windows clusters need neverfail. The company is also adding its replication-based continuous data protection support to Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V.

Neverfail's SVP for corporate development, Andrew Barnes, says Windows clusters have two nodes: an active node; and a passive node. If the active node fails then the Windows cluster software fails over to the passive node. If that should fail then the cluster is dead - unless ClusterProtector is used and it then fails over to a third machine, typically in a remote site.

ClusterProtector monitors cluster activity and, if the cluster fails, switches users to a backup system to which it has been replicating data changes so that it is ready to take over. Once the issue is resolved, Neverfail will seamlessly failback through a simple click of a button. Neverfail acts as a failsafe to keep businesses up and running with no need to reconnect any application. It is available for Microsoft Exchange Server, SQL Server and SharePoint Server.

The remote machine could be a replica of the source cluster or just a single machine, depending upon the customer's need. It could even be a virtual machine with its host doing other work.

Paddy Falls, Neverfail’s CTO, said: “Neverfail ClusterProtector is a bullet-proof solution. With our ‘shared-nothing’ architecture, continuity through a disaster with no application downtime is now possible for clustered deployments. We look forward to extending ClusterProtector to virtual environments upon Microsoft’s introduction of Hyper-V later this year.”

Barnes said that, with the Neverfail support for Windows Server 2008 and Hyper-V in version 5.4 of its product: "Physical-to-Virtual protection is a good opportunity for Neverfail. Hyper-V will accelerate this P-to-V protection trend."

It is, he said:" a very cost-effective way" to provide failover and continuous protection. Server virtualisation is not yet widespread. Neverfail has many customers that use virtual servers as test and development machines. With P-to-V failover protection these servers also function as a disaster recovery (DR) resource.

There is no standby server doing nothing else but wait for the failover call. Barnes said of Hyper-V: "As it's Microsoft and comes with the O/S we'll see people bringing Hyper-V services into play for DR and high availability. Neverfail's shared-nothing architecture lends itself to the secondary server being a VM."

This introduction to virtual servers should familiarise customers with the concept and then spread its use to mainstream applications outside the test and development environment.

Currently in beta, Neverfail ClusterProtector will be available in July.

(Read a Neverfail customer story about physical-to-virtual protection here.)

^{[Chris Mellor.]}