“In May, Cobalt Networks Inc., a provider of server appliances,
announced Cobalt StaQware, a high availability clustering solution
that ensures the uptime of business critical Web sites and
applications. StaQware, which runs on Cobalt’s RaQ 3i server
appliances, offers 99.99 percent availability and requires no
customization or modification to applications.”
“StaQware requires the user to have two RaQ 3i server appliances
as the hardware platform. StaQware is available through the Cobalt
Web site at shop.cobalt.com. Through the end of June, Cobalt
StaQware will be available at a special introductory price of $499
– 50 percent off of the suggested retail price of $999.”
“But, the ability to cluster only two systems is hardly a
world-beater. TurboLinux already has a cluster solution (Ref.
TurboLinux Clusters – One More Step Taken) for approximately the
same price as Cobalt’s (excluding Cobalt’s special promo). The
difference is TurboCluster has a version that can handle 25 or more
nodes, vs. two for StaQware. StaQware does not load-balance, which
we always thought was an intrinsic part of clustering. In addition,
the “failover” requires from one to 10 minutes for the backup
system to spin up the disk, etc. Maybe we’re being provincial, but
in our world, this is a replicated, semi-hot backup, not a
cluster. Even Microsoft clusters (until recently considered an
oxymoronic term by some) seem to be more cluster-like than this
offering.”
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