SIOS focuses on failovers in LifeKeeper for Linux update
SIOS updates LifeKeeper for Linux in a new version that adds to its high-availability features and simplifies management and security privileges through its console.
SIOS Technology's LifeKeeper for Linux is newly updated with fully automated failover, even across regions and availability zones, along with better privilege management.
Version 9.9.0 of LifeKeeper for Linux, SIOS's high availability and disaster recovery software for Linux systems, brings stronger synchronous and asynchronous replication, automatic failover without resynchronization, elevated permission granting to avoid security credential compromise and new language support, including German and Korean. Version 9.9.0 is available now and costs $2,500 per node per year, in addition to the cost of the license.
SIOS provides high-availability software to core database platform providers such as SAP and Oracle, according to Jason Bloomberg, founder and managing director of Intellyx, an analyst firm based in Amstelveen, Netherlands. The 9.9.0 version of LifeKeeper is a refinement for these customers, including in hybrid setups.
"SIOS is able to provide high availability clustering, leveraging different cloud instances for redundancy, even for these database products that weren't designed to have high availability in the cloud," Bloomberg said.
Replication and failover
LifeKeeper plugs into user applications and the platform they reside on and monitors the entire stack, including hardware, software and APIs. This monitoring allows for a better understanding of how the application works within the various aspects of the stack, thus leading to higher availability, according to SIOS. In the newest version, SIOS takes this understanding and translates it into advanced disaster recovery.
Until there is a failure, often the details have not been attended to, then you will see organizations looking for a better HA [high availability].
Camberley BatesAnalyst, The Futurum Group
This is where SIOS can set itself apart from other disaster recovery or high availability vendors, according to Camberley Bates, an analyst at The Futurum Group. Vendors in the high availability and disaster recovery market tend to lack the nuance of both the architecture and the recovery.
"Until there is a failure, often the details have not been attended to, then you will see organizations looking for a better HA [high availability]," she said.
Version 9.9.0 can fail over to DR nodes in different AWS regions or availability zones as either synchronous, asynchronous or both types of replications, which expands customer options, according to Bates. In the case of a three-node cluster, where the critical application is on a primary node and the secondary and tertiary nodes provide availability for failovers, the software can automatically check the status of other nodes to ensure seamless failover.
Having a three-node cluster improves overall availability. Syncing a secondary node can cause a delay.
"With SIOS, the second node can continue operation while the two remaining nodes get synced," she said.
Management and language
SIOS also added more languages to its console that was introduced in March. The new languages now include German and Korean, in addition to Japanese and English. Single server protection can now be managed through the console as well.
Other updates include changes to security management, including the choice between su or sudo, command-line utilities that manages privileges.
The LifeKeeper update to privilege management is less about SIOS setting itself apart in the market and more about refining what was in the previous version in terms of management and security, Bloomberg said.
"Every vendor has to make sure their security is up to date," he said.
Adam Armstrong is a TechTarget Editorial news writer covering file and block storage hardware and private clouds. He previously worked at StorageReview.
