Files called Invincible

A small private company wants to make the Network File System appliance invincible.

Invincible Technologies introduced an NFS server today that offers fault tolerance and failover capabilities for the fast-access-to-files market. Dedicated file access servers or appliances are gaining a rapid foothold with corporations building intranets and Internet service providers alike.

Invincible's Lifeline Symmetric Fault Tolerant server has dual server modules, based on Digital Equipment's Alpha microprocessor technology, that allow all processes to roll over from one microprocessor to another in case of failure. Users continue making requests as if nothing has happened.

Both server modules are active. Other components in the system, including controllers or network devices, also have their work redirected to an active component if they fail via the Lifeline SFT failover software included with each box.

Also included with each system is a Lifeline storage array and Digital's 64-bit Unix operating system. Invincible joins companies such as Network Appliance in the fast-growing, single-purpose server market.

The Lifeline SFT starts at $168,000 for an entry-level configuration with over 20GB of RAID (Redundant Array of Independent Disks) storage.