NewsFactor: Will Server Clusters Swarm the Mainstream?

"Just a few years ago, clustering technology was only for companies with huge budgets and sizeable IT departments. An enterprise needed workers with a fair amount of specialized knowledge to set up a clustered system, and costs could be prohibitive.

"Now, however, the practice of using Commodity Off The Shelf (COTS) systems as cluster nodes has driven prices down considerably. Companies that would have considered clustering too expensive and complicated just a few years ago are taking the plunge. And their goal is not just to achieve high performance. High availability is also a top priority.

"Red Hat's Brian Stevens confirmed that clustering has become cost-effective for smaller operations, thanks to increasing popularity of systems that use commodity hardware and Linux. 'It's not necessarily just for eBay or Wall Street anymore,' he told NewsFactor, adding that 'applications are at the department level now, and not just the IT backbone and Web presence...'"

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