SteelEye Insider

Well Deserved Praise (by Bob Williamson)

UK TechWorld has published a glowing review of our favorite HA product.  Read it here.

LifeKeeper for Linux v5.0.2 (by Nella Bishop)

SteelEye is pleased to announce the immediate general availability of SteelEye LifeKeeper for Linux v5.0.2: 

Major features of this release includes:

• Linux kernel certification completed – RHEL 3.0 Update 5 and RHEL 4.0 Update 1
• Support for IBM JS20 BladeServers

• Ability to use IBM RDAC utilities for building RAM disk during LifeKeeper setup if LifeKeeper is installed after RDAC

• VMware ESX Server Support - LifeKeeper for Linux can operate within VMware environments to build virtual/virtual, physical/virtual, and virtual/physical failover configurations.  New document posted on website under Linux v5.0 Documentation.

• Additional

  ARK

  support on IBM POWER – Sybase, Informix, and SAP DB / MaxDB ARKs

• Samba

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  – Improved integration with CUPS gen/app scripts for support of CUPS print services

http://licensing.steeleye.com/support/docm.php? has been updated with the latest documentation.

Exchange 2003 SP2 Reduces Cost (by Dave Bermingham)

The release of Exchange 2003 SP2 will remove the 16 GB limit on the Standard Edition of Exchange 2003.  Mailbox storage size limits are now set at 75 GB.  With the old 16 GB limit, Exchange 2003 Standard Edition was only an option for the smallest of businesses, and even then the Exchange Administrator had to keep a tight reign on mailbox sizes to ensure that the 16 GB limit would not be reached.

Now that Exchange 2003 Standard Edition SP2 will support up to a 75 GB mailbox store, it will quickly become a viable option for all but the largest of enterprises.  This is very welcome news for the small and medium size businesses who want to implement HA/DR for the Exchange servers, but do not have the budget to for two copies of Exchange Server 2003, two copies of Windows 2003 Enterprise plus the shared storage that is required in order to cluster Exchange using Microsoft’s Clustering Service.  A typical Exchange Cluster implemented with Microsoft Cluster Services would start at $16,000 for just the software alone (Windows 2003 Ent and Exchange 2003 Ent).  Add in the expense of a shared storage device and the strict hardware requirements, this project quickly approaches the $25k range and beyond.

By using LifeKeeper for Exchange and implementing on Windows 2003 Standard and Exchange 2003 Standard, the software, including Windows, Exchange and SteelEye cost less than $10,000!  That is a $6,000 savings and just software alone.  Add the fact that LifeKeeper for Exchange includes LifeKeeper Data Replication, you have also eliminated the shared storage requirement.  And to top it off, LifeKeeper does not require identical hardware, so existing hardware can be utilized.