Veritas Hooks Up Everyone

Veritas Software Corp. (Nasdaq: VRTS) plans to announce a new clustering technology on Monday.

Called the Veritas Cluster Server 2.0 and available now, it can hook together up to 32 servers from Hewlett-Packard Co. (NYSE: HWP), Microsoft Corp. (Nasdaq: MSFT), or Sun Microsystems Inc. (Nasdaq: SUNW), with support for more hardware vendors to come.

The big question from the point of view of storage vendors is whether it will help or hinder them in selling more products -- and the answer, according to analysts, is a bit of both.

On the plus side, the new Veritas box will make it easier and less expensive for users to set up clusters of servers and link them to a wide variety of storage devices.

Veritas is trying to open clustering up to the mass market,” says David Breiner, an analyst with Bear Stearns & Co. Inc. “Clustering tends to be a high-end requirement. It’s costly and not easy to deploy. The new server won’t necessarily be more functional, but it’ll be easier to deploy and administer, and it will have a lower price-point.”Veritas spokespeople say the new server is set up to support any type of storage device.

“This is just another layer of availability protection,” Breiner says. “It’s complementary. The storage is attached to the servers, and version 2.0 helps coordinate the servers to work with the storage.”

On the minus side, Steve Berg, analyst with Punk Ziegel & Co., says the new server might just work too well for storage vendors’ liking. “It improves speed and coordinates data,” he says. “It will certainly be of value to people running applications. But because it’s so efficient, storage vendors are not going to sell as much storage.”

Still, he says, even storage vendors should benefit a little from the new server. “It will help progress the storage market,” he said.

Unlike its clustering competitors, HP and Microsoft, that tend to take a server-specific approach, Veritas’s software supports multiple platforms and storage devices. Integrated with its Global Cluster Manager and Volume Replicator, the new software also functions as a part of the company’s disaster recovery solution.VCS 2.0 starts at $6,000 per server.

— Eugénie Larson, special to Byte and Switch
http://www.byteandswitch.com