Over the next two years Sun Microsystems Inc will gradually unfurl a slew of software for clustering its SMP servers as a single logical processing unit. Known generically as Full Moon – to Microsoft Corp’s Wolfpack – at least until until they are productized later this year, the technologies are the latest to be calved from Sun Labs Spring project where they’ve apparently been worked on since 1989. Sun promises that, a full decade later, it will have finally delivered a full suite of Java-based, single system image software, providing global process management, administration and file and disk access across multiple SMP nodes. Unlike rival clustering mechanisms such as Wolfpack or IBM Corp’s Phoenix, Sun says it’s not doing clustering to increase performance, claiming its SMP technology already provides the kind of processing power other vendors can achieve only when they implement clustering. Today Sun offers Solstice HA 1.3 software providing failover between a couple of its servers connected by 100Mbit Ethernet or FDDI links as well as parallel database software. Later this year it will offer a new package of add-ons for use with its Solaris Unix that will provide Java and browser-based monitoring of four-node clusters, support multiple logical hosts and high-availability versions of its WebServer and internet mail server as well as SAP and Lotus Notes. At this time Sun will create a new product name for the clustering software, which will be provided as a series of add- ons to Solaris. In 1998 it will offer a key cluster file system developed out of the Spring project to provide global access to distributed files and disks, allowing customers to write their own clustered applications without requiring use of a parallel database or other devices. Existing Solaris applications will still run unchanged, it advises. At the same time expect global networking services, global device access and Java/browser-based cluster controls. The software will be support up to eight nodes, connected by the 1Gbps SCI Sbus adapters being supplied by Dolphin Interconnect Solutions AS. In 1999 the company is to offer a full-blown single image across multiple systems, global process management and Java-based single image administration.
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