Microsoft is committed to providing a computing platform specifically designed for today's enterprise business applications, while anticipating the needs of the most demanding information systems of tomorrow. To meet these diverse requirements,, Microsoft is developing systems with leading technology vendors that provide increased availability and scalability of Information Technology (IT) services through clustering technology.
Many enterprise customers now use clustering technology to provide greater availability and scalability for their high-end mission-critical applications such as customer order entry. However, these clustering solutions are complex, difficult to configure, and use expensive proprietary hardware. Microsoft and its industry partners are working to bring the benefits of clustering technology to mainstream client/server computing. Microsoft is developing clustering technology, code named "Wolfpack," for the Microsoft Windows NT Server operating system, using open specifications, industry-standard hardware, and the ease-of-use customers have come to expect from Microsoft products.
Microsoft plans to deliver Wolfpack clustering in two phases. The first phase will allow one server to automatically "fail over" to another server, creating a high-availability Windows NT Server environment. The second phase will extend clustering by adding dynamic scalability to the features offered in phase 1. Two-node, high availability Wolfpack clusters (phase 1) will begin beta testing at selected customer sites in late 1996, and will become commercially available in the first half of 1997. At the same time, Microsoft will also provide tools that allow application developers to create and manage enterprise applications that take advantage of clustering for Windows NT Server.