News : Red Hat Unveils Linux Clustering Solution

[Yoon Jae Ho]

http://www.businesswire.com/cgi-bin/f_headline.cgi?bw.071000/201920154&ticker=RHAT


( BW)(NC-RED-HAT)(RHAT) Red Hat Unveils Linux Clustering Solution; Adapted Version of Red Hat Linux 6.2 Delivers
Advanced Security, Scalability and Availability for a Reliable Internet Infrastructure


    Business/Technology Editors

    RESEARCH TRIANGLE PARK, N.C.--(BUSINESS WIRE)--July 10, 2000--Red Hat, Inc. (Nasdaq:RHAT), a leader in open source Internet infrastructure
solutions, today announced the Red Hat(TM) High Availability Server 1.0, a specialized version of the award-winning Red Hat Linux 6.2 solution.
    Red Hat High Availability Server is an out-of-the-box clustering solution that delivers dynamic load balancing, improved fault tolerance and scalability of TCP/IP
based applications. It lets users combine individual servers into a cluster, resulting in highly available access to critical network resources such as data, applications,
network services, and more. If one server in the cluster fails, another will automatically take over its workload. The Red Hat High Availability Server is ideally suited
to Web servers, ftp servers, mail gateways, firewalls, VPN gateways and other front-end IP-based applications where virtually uninterrupted service is required.
    "The Red Hat High Availability Server is optimized specifically for Internet Service Providers (ISPs) and corporate customers who want to dramatically reduce
the time needed for implementation," said Paul McNamara, vice president, products and platforms, Red Hat, Inc. "In today's demanding Internet environment, server
failure means lost revenue and diminished customer satisfaction. With this product, we are providing customers with a flexible, affordable, and highly available
front-end Internet infrastructure solution. Because the Red Hat High Availability Server software can be installed on any off-the-shelf commodity hardware that
supports Linux--it offers service providers and corporate IT departments an option for increased availability at a significant overall cost savings."
    The product supports heterogeneous network environments, allowing individual members of the cluster to run Red Hat Linux or virtually any other OS including
Solaris(R), and Windows NT(R). Because the Red Hat High Availability Server is an open source product, customers are free from expensive technology lock-in
that often occurs with proprietary solutions.

    New Security Features

    The Red Hat High Availability Server has a number of inherent security features designed specifically for high availability Web front-end applications. Remote
system access is disabled by default, and unused network services are not installed or started in the standard installation.
    The Red Hat High Availability Server can be configured in two main ways. In Failover Services (FOS) mode, the system can be configured as a two node cold
failover cluster ideally suited for applications where simple, affordable redundancy is needed such as firewalls, static Web servers, DNS, and mail servers. In Linux
Virtual Server (LVS) mode, the system can be configured as an n-node cluster consisting of a two node load balancer, which accepts requests and directs those
request to one of any number of IP-based servers based on a configurable traffic management algorithm.

    Red Hat High Availability Server 1.0 Features and Benefits

    -- Easy Installation: The Red Hat High Availability Server is based on the award winning Red Hat Linux OS. Red Hat's engineers have created a special
installation-class that installs only those packages that are needed with the clustering packages. The Red Hat High Availability Server is installed for optimal
performance--saving time and hassle.

    -- Higher Performance and Scalability: The Red Hat High Availability Server supports the scalability that meets the growth demands of today's highly dynamic IP
environments. The number of cluster nodes is limited only by the hardware and network used. The product has advanced cluster features that provide high levels of
performance including an ability to configure servers to bypass the load balancers when returning traffic back to the client, increasing the overall performance of the
cluster. Additionally, because individual nodes can be taken off-line for maintenance or upgrades without interruption of service, the product eliminates costly
downtime.

    -- Maximized Flexibility: The Red Hat High Availability Server offers Systems Administrators a high degree of flexibility. In LVS mode the product supports four
load balancing methods (Round Robin, Weighted Round Robin, Least Connections, and Weighted Least Connections) and three traffic forwarding techniques (IP
Masquerading, Tunneling and Direct Routing). Virtually every popular IP service is supported including Web (http), email, FTP, LDAP, DNS, and others.

    -- Increased Security: The Red Hat High Availability Server has built-in security features designed to withstand common attacks. Systems Administrators can
setup sand traps, providing for redirection of IP traffic from a potential attacker to a secure address. Out of the box, finger, talk, wall, and other daemons are
disabled or not installed. In addition, multiple traffic routing and scheduling techniques along with virtual IP addresses allow you to create a security barrier for your
network.

    -- Availability: The Red Hat High Availability Server dramatically reduces the likelihood of system failure by quickly detecting component server and application
failures and redirecting workload to the remaining servers in the cluster. If one or more servers fail, others take over with minimal interruption. 

    -- Excellent Value: Uses inexpensive commodity hardware to lower your overall cost of purchasing and maintaining the system.

    -- Support: A one year support package that includes standard hours installation and configuration assistance and 24x7 server-down support for two Linux
Routers of a Piranha cluster, configuration of Piranha and Linux Virtual Server and any services required to run these applications, including httpd and ftpd, and
configuration of Piranha and Linux Virtual Server for connectivity to one node behind the Linux Routers for either httpd or ftpd service.

    Pricing and Availability

    The price of the Red Hat High Availability Server is $1995. It is available online at www.redhat.com or at select resellers. Red Hat High Availability Server
includes a full year of installation and configuration support via telephone or the Web from Red Hat's global support staff.

    Open Source Momentum

    International Data Corp. (IDC) research states that paid Linux shipments grew faster than any other server operating system over the past two years, and their
preliminary figures for 1999 show Linux shipments hold 24.6 percent of the server operating system market, up from 15.8 in 1998. IDC also states that Red Hat
Linux is by far the most popular distribution, preferred by 68.7 percent of U.S. Linux users.
    Research firm Netcraft, Inc. (www.netcraft.com), states that as of May 2000, 36 percent of all public Web sites run on Linux-based operating systems, making
Linux the most popular choice for deploying public Web sites. IDC research shows 40 percent of all spending on Linux servers is for Internet related applications,
firmly entrenching Linux servers in the Internet infrastructure.
    Finally, IDC predicts that by 2002, there will be more than 55 million handheld and notebook-style information appliance devices and that by 2005, shipments of
these appliances will exceed shipments of PCs.
    Red Hat's numerous alliances with industry leaders and the demand for Linux-based applications has created open source support from many of the industry's
leading software and hardware manufacturers, including Compaq, Computer Associates, Dell, Hewlett-Packard, IBM, Intel, Netscape, Novell, Oracle and SAP.


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Yoon Jae Ho
Economist
POSCO Research Institute

yoon at bh.kyungpook.ac.kr
jhyoon at mail.posri.re.kr
http://ie.korea.ac.kr/~supercom/  Korea Beowulf

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