SteelEye White Paper: Supporting Geographically Dispersed Windows Server 2008

SteelEye DataKeeper is a highly optimized host-based replication solution which integrates seamlessly with Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering. New features of Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering such as cross-subnet failover and tunable heartbeat parameters makes it possible for administrators to deploy geographically dispersed clusters. SteelEye DataKeeper provides the data replication mechanism which extends Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering, allowing administrators to take advantage of these advanced features to support high availability and disaster recovery configurations.

Windows Server 2008 Failover Clustering (WSFC) is the new name for Microsoft's failover clustering solution. A new name was needed in order to differentiate Windows "failover" clustering from another new "high performance" computing clustering technology offered by Microsoft called Windows HPC Server 2008.

The new features included in WSFC make it the most robust and easy to use failover clustering solution offered by Microsoft to date. These new features, described below, minimize the challenges with deploying geographically dispersed clusters.