Speed In Clusters -- Providing server availability now gives some shops faster performance

Abstract

From Windows NT-based systems with single failover capabilities to fault-tolerant systems based on Unix or proprietary operating systems, hardware clusters no longer require a performance trade-off for availability. Clusters - which combine processors or systems as a single-system image - help IS shops cope with outages, disasters, updates, and upgrades. Typically, however, clustering a system sacrifices some performance. Casey Powell, chairman and CEO of Sequent Computer Systems Inc., believes IS managers require 99.99% availability from servers. In an effort to deliver, Powell directs a hardware cluster architecture based on 4 Intel processor quads, 64 quads per node, and 8 nodes per single system image. In February 1997, Sequent expects to begin shipping Unix systems built according to NUMA (Nonuniform Memory Access), an architecture for building clusters with inexpensive commodity boards and local memory. Powell expects the new Sequent systems to perform 6 to 12 times better than the current Symmetry systems.