Sun Cluster vs Veritas Cluster

Last week, my colleague and I traveled to Kuala Lumpur to conduct a TOI (Transfer of Information) session to our customer, a telco solutions provider.

During the session, we were asked the differences between Sun Cluster and Veritas Cluster.

Fairly common question, I'hv been asked a few times before.

Sun Cluster

* Kernel-based - faster in failure-detection

* Only support Sun Solaris OS

* Cheaper overall - e.g. IPMP, MPxIO, UFS, SVM all free from Solaris OS

Veritas Cluster

* Software-based

* Support multiple platforms

* More expensive overall - e.g. VxFS requires extra license

A typical scenario to utilize Veritas Cluster is a mid-sized to large-sized company having multiple platforms (Solaris, HP-UX, AIX ...) in their data center. In order to standardize the clustering software (so as to reduce training and operation cost), Veritas Cluster will be the choice to use.