Veritas Bolsters Utility Computing ; When it comes to enabling utility computing, Veritas Software Corp. has several irons in the fire.

Abstract

Veritas Software Corp expects to close by the end of Jan 2004 a $59 million deal to purchase Ejasent Inc. Veritas will then add Ejasent's UpScale application virtualization technology to its own High Availability Clustering offering.

When it comes to enabling utility computing, Veritas Software Corp. has several irons in the fire.

The Mountain View, Calif., company expects to close by the end of the month a $59 million deal to purchase Ejasent Inc. Veritas will then add Ejasent's UpScale application virtualization technology to its own High Availability Clustering offering, while integrating Ejasent's MicroMeasure usage-based metering software into its CommandCentral Service product to enhance service-level reporting, Veritas officials said.

Separately, Veritas at the LinuxWorld Expo in New York this week will announce that its Veritas Cluster Server application optimization and Foundation Suite storage management products can run on SuSE Linux AG's SuSE Linux Enterprise. The move complements existing Red Hat Inc. Red Hat Linux support in the Veritas product and fosters greater Linux deployment options, according to Veritas officials.

Veritas will also introduce support for VMware Inc.'s ESX Server in Veritas' Cluster Server. This will allow multiple instances of Linux, Windows and NetWare to run on a single x86-based server while Cluster Server monitors and fails over each of the virtual machines within the VMware ESX Server.

Additionally, Veritas will unveil Veritas OpForce 3.2, which will provide the capability to automatically provision blade and bare- metal servers running on SuSE Linux Enterprise Server 8, Red Hat Enterprise Linux Advanced Server 3.0 and Windows Server 2003 Enterprise Edition.

Available in March, OpForce 3.2 will offer support for Intel Corp. 64-bit Itanium processor-based servers, a predeployment policy to enable automation based on specified rules, in-context provisioning, on-the-fly personalization and resource pooling.

With its multiplatform stance, storage experts say Veritas is positioning itself to respond to the commoditization of enterprise hardware and software. "If you look at where Linux is likely to be positioned within an enterprise due to [the] utility computing trend, it's likely to be running more and more critical tasks over time," said Dan Kusnetzky, an analyst at IDC of Framingham, Mass. Veritas "would come to the party with a great deal of experience and a good working knowledge of how organizations use this type of software."