Just a few years ago, clustering technology was only for companies with huge budgets and sizeable IT departments. An enterprise needed workers with a fair amount of specialized knowledge to set up a clustered system, and costs could be prohibitive.

Now, however, the practice of using Commodity Off The Shelf (COTS) systems as cluster nodes has driven prices down considerably. Companies that would have considered clustering too expensive and complicated just a few years ago are taking the plunge. And their goal is not just to achieve high performance. High availability is also a top priority.

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