Sun sees the whole of the moon with cluster upgrade

Code-named Full Moon, SunCluster 3.0 software will offer faster failure detection and include links to cluster-aware applications such as Oracle Parallel Server.

More importantly, the new cluster management software, to be released next week, will allow companies to monitor multiple nodes within a cluster from a single console that previously had to be managed separately.

However, Sun won't have a clear run at the market, with other vendors taking a similar approach. The Microsoft Application Center is designed to manage internet farms of Windows 2000 servers and TurboLinux provides cluster management software for Linux and other operating systems.

Brad Day, analyst at Giga, believes Sun's release is a major enhancement to the company's last version.

He said: "I think the release took a longer time in coming because it's a complex technology that includes work around the Solaris operating system and other system software, hardware and network infrastructures."