In the big picture, the clustering and availability market was worth about $750 million in 2003, and will grow to $1.5 billion by 2008, International Data Corp analyst Dan Kusnetzky says. The market first evolved from products like Digital Equipment Corp.'s VAXcluster (now Hewlett-Packard Co.'s
Serviceguard), Sun's Suncluster 3 series, and IBM Corp.'s (NYSE: IBM)
Sysplex and High Availability Cluster Multiprocessing (HACMP). Qlusters is joined by PolyServe Inc. in bringing it to open systems, according to Kusnetzky. He also notes there are open-source alternatives such as the Open Cluster Framework.
Overall, Qlusters' software is easier than most to set up and administer, Kusnetzky says. The company faces the same challenges as any startup competing against much larger players. "I think they've got a fairly good shot at success." Qlusters could seek companies like Dell Inc. (Nasdaq: DELL) and overseas resellers to become OEM customers, he feels.
ClusterFrame has a list price of $6,250 per server and $9,000 to $10,000 for the systems image and high-availability modules, Martin says. For now the company runs on venture capital, having raised $22.2 million so far from Benchmark Capital, Benchmark Capital/Israel, Israel Seed Partners, Duff Ackerman & Goodrich, and Charles River Ventures. The company has just under 50 employees.
Evan Koblentz, Senior Editor, Next-gen Data Center Forum
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