News
Then There was N-1
- By Scott Bekker
- 06/08/1999
Legato Systems Inc. (
www.legato.com) is continuing to drive consolidation in the Windows NT system clustering market. Less than two months after finally completing a protracted acquisition of FullTime Software, Legato announced the signing of an agreement to acquire FullTime competitor Vinca Corp. (
www.vinca.com).
While FullTime and Vinca competed with their server-to-server data replication and service failover products in the Windows NT space, each company also had unique markets that differentiated them. FullTime Software, which was the conglomeration of the former Qualix Group and Octopus Technologies, offered clustering, replication and failover capabilities that supports Windows NT and several flavors of Unix. Vinca’s products include Standby Server for NetWare and CoStandby Server for Windows NT 4.0.
With both Vinca and FullTime becoming part of Legato, the number of independent data replication and clustering technology vendors is quickly diminishing. Last fall, Microsoft acquired Valence Research Inc., whose IP load-balancing product, Convoy Cluster, has reemerged as the Windows Load Balancing Service (WLBS). The WLBS product can be used with or independent of Microsoft’s Cluster Server product. One of the only remaining independent vendors in the market is NSI Software (www.nsisw.com) with its Double-Take product.
Legato, which has been on an acquisition spree, also closed a deal on Intelliguard Software Inc. earlier this year. The Intelligard acquisition brought serverless SAN backup capabilities into Legato’s backup and storage management product family. – Al Gillen
About the Author
Scott Bekker is editor in chief of Redmond Channel Partner magazine.