>>> On Thu, Apr 12, 2007 at 7:58 AM, in message <[EMAIL PROTECTED]>, Alan Robertson <[EMAIL PROTECTED]> wrote: > Sander van Vugt wrote: >> Hi, >> >> Just like to know your opinion about the following. A pure Linux shop >> would of course definitely go for Heartbeat as the solution for high >> availability. However, in an environment that comes from Novell's >> NetWare, Novell Cluster Services (NCS) would be the best choice, >> especially if running OESv1 that runs on top of SUSE Linux Enterprise >> Server (SLES) 9. Now in the upcoming Open Enterprise Server 2, which >> runs on top of SLES 10, it appears that customers do have a choice >> between Heartbeat from the SLES stack, or NCS from the OES stack. Does >> anyone have thoughts about that? For example, when clustering something >> like Novell GroupWise in a shop that wants to implement OESv2 later this >> year, to me personally, Heartbeat seems the better choice, since it has >> much more features. What I'd like to know, is there any particular >> reason why in the upcoming OESv2 one would still choose NCS? (Except for >> backward compatibility of course) > > I can't comment on this, but I can suggest a question for you to ask. > > What is the future (5- year) plan for NCS?
Not speaking in any official capacity; I can certainly offer some answers to this. Attendees to Novell's recent Brainshare conference will have received similar information. But first, it's probably appropriate to comment on Novell's contributions to open source software in general, and the Heartbeat project in particular. Everyone of course knows Lars and Andrew; the architect and lead developer (respectively) of Heartbeat2's major new feature; the new CRM, are both employed by Novell. Open source contributions that hopefully benefit the Linux H/A cluster experience; include: + Xen resource agent + EVMS2 Cluster Extension (ECE) for Heartbeat2 + Raid resource agent modifications to support A/P MD Raid failover (now that MD Raid also supports bitmap checkpoints) + Integration with iSCSI Initiator and Target + EVMS2 feature plugin for iSCSI Target + EVMS2 file system interface module (fsim) for OCFS2 + Userspace cluster membership interface for OCFS2 integrated with Heartbeat2's clone resources + Lots of QA; in large system test labs designed to test SAN/cluster software. + Lots of other related stuff that shows up in OpenSUSE etc. > What is the future (5- year) plan for NCS? The next release; part of OES2 as noted by others; is designed for customers that expect a long term product roadmap; and adds features like resource monitoring and recovery. As others have commented; this product is primarily used in a Novell Netware environment; which means cluster and resource configuration is centrally managed via a directory; and administrative tools are designed to integrate cluster, file system and directory (access rights) management. NCS also supports mixed Netware and Linux clusters sharing storage, and allows for a rolling cluster upgrade, from Netware to Linux OS; for customers that are migrating their Netware servers to Linux running the Novell Storage Services (Netware) file system. As the Open Cluster Framework (OCF) Resource Agent becomes an accepted standard; for service level management and fault recovery on Linux; there will be more open source RAs for commercial software; like SAP, Oracle and Novell products such as GroupWise. Just like the Novell Storage Services (Netware) file system; which is already open source, various parts of NCS will also be open sourced in the hope of benefiting the open source Linux HA experience. Hth, RObert _______________________________________________ Linux-HA mailing list [EMAIL PROTECTED] http://lists.linux-ha.org/mailman/listinfo/linux-ha See also: http://linux-ha.org/ReportingProblems
