Loudcloud Inc., a leading software infrastructure services provider, today (Jan 9) announced new server clustering capabilities as part of its Database Smart Cloud service. These enhancements allow Loudcloud customers to take advantage of a robust database service that offers full redundancy and fail-over capabilities, limiting the potential for lost data and dramatically increasing website uptime.
To meet its customers’ stringent uptime requirements, Loudcloud offers an enterprise database solution that is highly available with built-in redundancy at every database layer and provides better overall performance. Loudcloud is delivering these new capabilities using Loudcloud’s automation technology, Opsware, and proven enterprise technology from industry-leading data technology vendors such as Veritas, Oracle, EMC and Brocade.
“This type of high-availability solution requires advanced technical skills, making it out of reach for companies lacking the resources or the talent to support it,” said Ben Horowitz, CEO at Loudcloud. “Loudcloud customers will now get the benefits of this first-class set of technologies combined with the unique power of Opsware to manage the valuable data that is the brain of their Internet operations.”
Database clustering connects two or more computers together in such a way that they behave like a single database. A clustered database would typically run on one primary server and, in case of its failure, the database is automatically switched to a second, standby server. Without this capability, customers that experienced database failures would have to be switched over manually, resulting in longer downtimes and potential data loss. Through this functionality, any failure is transparent to the end user, and access to any data affected by the failure is granted in minutes rather then hours.
Loudcloud engineers have enhanced Opsware to perform this fail-over to a second database with speed and precision. Opsware is Loudcloud’s unique automation technology that streamlines formerly manual tasks associated with the deployment, support and growth of Internet infrastructure. Opsware performs tasks with precision that is consistent over time, provides infrastructure dynamically that will scale to meet the changing demands of customers, and can perform functions in a fraction of the time that is required to perform these operations manually.
The Database Smart Cloud also protects customers from any single point of failure in their data management systems. This is accomplished through complete redundancy for all data technology components including the servers, server disks, the network, switches, storage disks and storage frames.
Loudcloud was formed in September 1999 by some of the Internet’s early entrepreneurs, including Netscape co-founder Marc Andreessen and former Netscape/AOL executives Ben Horowitz, Tim Howes and In Sik Rhee. Loudcloud offers businesses Internet infrastructure services required to provision, deploy, maintain and scale Internet operations.
Loudcloud’s Smart Cloud services enable businesses to benefit from reliable, high-quality and scalable Internet operations without undertaking the difficulty and expense associated with building the required expertise in-house. These Smart Cloud services leverage Loudcloud’s proprietary Opsware automation technology to deliver scalability and reliability for a broad base of customers.
