Integrated Solution For Load-Balanced Server Clusters

Cobalt and Coyote Point join forces to offer an economical turnkey solution for server farms, enterprises.

by Wayne Kawamoto [January 18, 2000]

Coyote Point Systems and Cobalt Networks recently announced an integrated ISP/web hosting solution for deploying load balanced server clusters. Working together, Cobalt's RaQ Internet server appliance and Coyote Point's Equalizer 4.0 offer intelligent load balancing, and, according to the companies, maximize an ISP's scalability.

The Cobalt RaQ offers turnkey, virtual hosting in a rack-mountable enclosure. Meanwhile, the Equalizer model 250 can balance up to 64 clusters of eight servers each, support 64,000 simultaneous connections at T1 rates, and automatically route traffic among multiple server clusters to provide access to mission-critical Internet applications.

The Equalizer balances HTTP, e-mail, news, and FTP traffic, and supports the "sticky connections" that are needed to handle Active Server Pages and SSL.

The Linux kernel at the core of the RaQ, and the BSD kernel of the Equalizer provide stability for TCP/IP implementations, and both can handle millions of Web page requests per day.

Both products offer browser-based administration. The Equalizer's browser-based control panel lets administrators add, remove, and reallocate clustered servers, and offers real-time graphical reporting.

"Clustered RaQs managed by Equalizer provide system administrators with previously-unimagined levels of scalability, availability and manageability," says Tom Wolf, CTO of Coyote Point Systems. "As online traffic continues to explode, companies seeking tremendous bang for their hardware buck should love the RaQ-Equalizer combo."

Available now
The RaQ starts at $1,299, and the Equalizer 250 is available for $3,995. According to Cobalt Networks and Coyote Point, four RaQs, along with an Equalizer 250 will easily support 64 high-end web hosting customers at an entry cost of less than $9,200 - under $150 per customer.

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