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The ExpressCluster solution

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System availability – key to the running of your business

Nowadays, the heart of your business runs through IT. The unavailability of applications and data can lead to heavy financial loss, whether direct or indirect. High availability of critical applications is essential to guarantee maximum operational reliability.

A few minutes for renewal of activity

NEC ExpressCluster™ allows efficient data protection thanks to its shared bay clustering mode, or data mirroring. NEC High Availability technology makes it possible to avoid material and software breakdown. In mirror mode, the new data is automatically copied, of the primary system to the backup system, in synchronous or asynchronous mode. Asynchronous mode of the NEC ExpressCluster™ allows an activity renewal solution to be set up in the event of a disaster between the principal site and the backup site.

Service continuity for critical applications

NEC ExpressCluster permanently monitors your servers and your applications. If it detects a failure, it automatically moves all the resources (divided applications, processes, services, discs, virtual IP addresses, tasks of impression, etc...) onto a backup server, which guarantees service continuity for all users.

Synchronous mirroring mode : All data written to the mirrored disk on the primary system is also written to the mirrored disk on the standby system in real-time as a single transaction. The synchronous mode ensures the mirrored disks have exactly the same data.

Asynchronous mirroring mode : Expands the mirroring mode to servers on different locations. This mode allows to set up a disaster recovery plan.

Automatic breakdown control: All Cluster servers constantly send a status signal to the other servers. If a signal is not received, a switch is automatically carried out.

Unified and simplified management (under Linux and Windows): companies use single Web administration interface. The formation and management of heterogeneous clusters are simplified and facilitated. Principal Characteristics Supported Platforms: Windows (2000, 2003 Server & Advanced Server) and Linux Business.

Principal Characteristics

Supported Platforms: Windows (2000, 2003 Server & Advanced Server)and Linux usiness

Architecture : Synchronous or asynchronous mirror, or Divided Bay

Flexible configuration: From 1 to 3 servers in mirror mode.
Up to 32 servers in divided bay mode

Modes of Clustering : Active/Passive or Active/Active

Certified applications: IIS, Exchange 2003, RightFax, Oracle, SQL, mySQL, DB2, sendmail, Samba, Tuxedo Weblogic, Websphere.

System availability 99,999%: Combined with NEC Fault Tolerant servers, the NEC ExpressCluster™ solution ensures 99,999% availability and reduces the risk of service interruption.

Three designs to answer the needs of customers:

NEC ExpressCluster™ in synchronous mirror mode carries out real time synchronisation of local discs of two servers on the same site (divided discs not necessary), and permanently supervises the applications. If one of them fails, the second server takes over. The synchronous mode guarantees that the mirrored hard disks have exactly the same data.

NEC ExpressCluster™ in asynchronous mirror mode extends the mirror mode for servers on distant sites. This mode makes it possible to set up a recovery plan in the event of disaster

NEC ExpressCluster™ in divided bay mode: between two to thirty-two servers can share a disk bay. NEC ExpressCluster™ detects system and application failure. It then switches the last checkpoint onto a backup server which directly accesses the data on the shared disks.