Virtualization.com

News and insights from the vibrant world of virtualization and cloud computing

HA

Kemari v1.0 Released

by Leave a Comment

Last month,TAMURA Yoshiaki from the Kernel Group , OSS Computing Project at the NTT Cyber Space Labs announced the availability of Kemari on the Xen Devel mailing list.

Kemari is an open-source virtual machine synchronization mechanism for fault tolerance. It’s similar to Remus which we covered earlier.

Kemari tries to achieve a fault tolerance setup that does not
require the use of specific hardware or modification of applications.
Kemari aims to keep VMs transparently running in times of hardware
failures. It transfers the state of the primary VM to the secondary
VM when the primary VM is about to send an event to devices such as
storage and networks.
In short it is trying to real time mirroring of Virtual Machine instances.

The, source (Kemari has been released under the GPL) , documentation and different presentations including a Video running both a Linux and Windows demo are available at the Kemari Website

Kemari is listed on Xen Product Roadmap, and is asking for reviews and comments from the community.

We already mentionned Remus in earlier posts here at Virtualization.com and it seems the the Kemari and Remus project are planning to merge in order to to propose a better solution for Xen 3.4 together.

Symantec Unveils Veritas Cluster Server One (VCS One)

by Leave a Comment

Symantec today introduced Veritas Cluster Server One (VCS One), a new high availability (HA) and disaster recovery (DR) platform for next-generation data centers. VCS One moves beyond traditional clustering, enabling IT managers to implement advanced services including active/active DR, multi-tier business application HA and scale-out control — increasing uptime and decreasing capital (CAPEX) and operational costs (OPEX) for the business.

Traditional clustering solutions can be complex to deploy and manage for individual databases and applications. Yet next-generation data centers, with their need for virtualized, scalable and distributed environments, strain these traditional solutions past the breaking point. Next-generation data centers are leveraging server virtualization to create thousands of servers, demanding a massive increase in scalability. In addition, traditional clustering solutions complicate or even prevent the use of valuable virtualization features like live migration. Finally, maintaining only the availability of traditional back-end services such as databases is not enough. Instead, organizations require the availability of end-to-end business applications built on highly distributed, multi-tier application architectures.

Veritas Cluster Server One delivers a new, unique HA/DR architecture that not only directly addresses these issues, but also dramatically simplifies the deployment and ongoing management of HA/DR services. The VCS One architecture is client-server based and highly scalable, initially supporting up to 256 nodes per cluster. It is non-intrusive and outside the operating system kernel — facilitating deployment and upgrades. VCS One also has a simpler networking model and built-in resiliency against configuration changes that impact availability. VCS One is policy-driven, with priorities, scheduling and dependency management to automate tasks and increase operator efficiency. Finally, Veritas Cluster Server One has server virtualization abstraction and control to deliver a common HA/DR operating model across the various virtual platforms in an enterprise data center.

Veritas Cluster Server One provides high availability and disaster recovery for the next-generation data center with: One platform for virtual and physical environments; One platform for multi-tier and monolithic applications; and One platform for scale-out and scale-up control.

Veritas Cluster Server One is now generally available with estimated pricing starting at $995 per CPU.

VirtualLogix Invents “Carrier Grade Virtualization”

by Leave a Comment

VirtualLogix today announced something called “Carrier Grade Virtualization”, which it claims is the industry’s first solution that meets the performance, security, serviceability and availability needs of next generation, multicore-based carrier grade systems.

VirtualLogix says Carrier Grade Virtualization reduces the cost and complexity of maintaining carrier grade properties in edge and core network elements such as IP Multimedia System (IMS) nodes. According to the news release, networking and telecommunication OEMs can reuse existing investments in their carrier grade systems while gaining the benefits of using VirtualLogix VLX real-time virtualization software (faster adoption of multicore architectures and consolidation of hardware, reduced bill of materials, increased availability, improved time to market, and more efficient designs as a result).

VirtualLogix Carrier Grade Virtualization technology integrates High-Availability software with real-time virtualization in a multicore environment, and allows HA middleware to manage not only applications and hardware but also virtual machines running their own operating systems.

VirtualLogix also announced they are joining the Service Availability Forum.

VirtualLogix Carrier Grade Virtualization technology is immediately available and integrates VLX for Network Infrastructure, vHA, a virtualization enabled HA interface, and VLX Developer, a set of configuration, building and monitoring tools.

[Source: Business Wire]

VirtualLogix

Stratus Technologies Releases Avance, Integrates With Citrix XenServer for Software-Based High-Availability Solution

by 1 Comment

Stratus Technologies has announced (PDF) its Stratus Avance software, the company’s first software-based high availability (HA) product. Using embedded virtualization and running on ordinary x86 servers, Avance claims to provide levels of availability superior to, and without the complexity of, high-availability cluster solutions for Linux and Windows applications.

Stratus Technologies

Stratus’ new software-based solution targets the SMB market as well as “edge” applications in large distributed networks where IT-staff support is minimal or non-existent. Prospective customers include medical practices, retail chains, small companies, branch banks, remote office or departmental computing, or distributed warehouses, distribution hubs or manufacturing facilities, for example.

Unlike other high-availability solutions, Avance HA positions itself as instant and automatic. Processing takes place on one server and data is simultaneously written to the mate, which can seamlessly assume
processing duties at any time should the primary server go out of service. If that happens, the affected server is removed from the network, alerts go out to user-defined recipients, a repair is made, and the server is brought back online to resynchronize with the active node with no downtime or data loss.

Avance is integrated with Citrix XenServer, and the U.S. list price for Avance software is $2,500 per server (including the license for Citrix XenServer). Avance software is available from Stratus channel partners and distributors, and in volume purchases directly from Stratus.

VirtualLogix Introduces VLX vHA, Aims To Lead In High-Availability Assurance For Virtualized Environments

by Leave a Comment

VirtualLogix today released VLX vHA, which it claims is the industry’s first solution that enables high-availability (HA) assurances for communications equipment utilizing virtualization. VLX vHA comes integrated with VLX for Network Infrastructure and aims to increase system availability without the cost and scalability restrictions of traditional solutions.

VirtualLogix

“There are growing requirements to increase the up-time of all types of communications equipment in today’s competitive environment. Yet traditionally, high-availability techniques have been mostly applied in high-end core networks due to complexity and hardware cost,” said Mark Milligan, Vice President of Marketing at VirtualLogix. “Now, VLX vHA enables our customers to take full advantage of high availability combined with virtualization. Built on an open architecture supporting standard Service Availability Forum interfaces, VLX vHA also provides a viable option for organizations looking to utilize their existing high-availability software in the new, virtualized, multicore environment.”

VLX vHA offers fault recovery and system management services across virtual and physical domains, allowing companies to increase the availability of communications equipment and other critical embedded systems. vHA also offers scalability with wide range capabilities from hardware and guest OS management to the restart of applications from a known state. This allows the introduction of the appropriate level of availability based on system requirements.

VLX vHA is available as an option with VLX for Network Infrastructure real-time virtualization software.

[Source: LinuxDevices]