Following in the footsteps of Digital Equipment Corp and Tandem Computers Inc, Siemens Nixdorf Informationssysteme AG has brought out its own interim version of NT clustering called Server Shield. The product brings a two-node failover capability to the company’s Primergy NT boxes and is intended to tide customers over who are waiting for Microsoft Corp’s Wolfpack clustering product now in beta testing and due out this summer. Server Shield enables a cluster of systems to be set up as primary and secondary servers, connected via Siemens Nixdorf’s proprietary SCSI switch. If the first machine fails, the second can get to the data on the disk drives via the switch. Applications can run without alteration on top of Server Shield, whereas Wolfpack will require a new data link library to tell an application how to behave if a server fails. The company plans to charge small handling fee for upgrades to Wolfpack when it finally comes out. Add-on products for Wolfpack, including a back-up utility and Siemens Nixdorf’s TransView systems management product to manage clustered machines, are also planned. A Server Shield upgrade will enable customers set up three primary servers linked to one secondary one so you could have a primary database machine and two application servers. But Server Shield will not dynamically partition an application across the two application servers – a facility planned in the second phase of Wolfpack. Siemens Nixdorf is planning Wolfpack demonstrations at Cebit next month.
