Sun touts new Solaris cluster software

Sun claims that Solaris Cluster can reduce overheads and hardware costs

Sun Microsystems has unveiled new Solaris Cluster software, which it said will provide significant cost savings for enterprise adopters.

The software, which is available now, adds new virtualisation features, and will let customers run the Oracle E-Business suite, Siebel CRM package, and Oracle database and application clusters directly from a Solaris container, the firm said.

According to Sun, Solaris Cluster version 3.2 adds faster failover notification and minimal application downtime in case of a failure. It also extends support for Oracle Automatic Storage Management (ASM) with Real Application Clusters databases, to support the use of ASM in a fully virtualised environment.

"Customers using Solaris Cluster technology to achieve significant cost savings by optimising compute resource utilisation and consolidating multi-tier applications and databases are also finding benefits and cost savings from improved end-to-end system reliability, availability and serviceability," said Jim McHugh, vice president of datacentre marketing at Sun.

"Customers can reduce software licensing fees, system management overheads and hardware costs, as well as get great investment protection with more than 10 years of support for each product version of Solaris Cluster."

The tools make up a framework for Solaris systems that includes server, storage, networking and software components.