This is not some hokey active-passive failover cluster hack that just crashes the database and filesystem and mounts it on another server. It’s a true active-active setup.

Regarding xkoto and cloud computing, IBM is in a unique position here to do something truly revolutionary. Or, get ahead of the coming change in the landscape on be an early pioneer.

What we have the opportunity here to do is to create a true clustered WAN solution, offering high availability, on demand resources, which can scale up or down as needed, and reduced network latency, by delivering improved application performance due to moving data sources closer to remote user offices.

This concept is trying to get branded by Cisco as the “intercloud.” Basically it’s a true active-active, peer to peer architecture, where the database and the app live in an environment spread over the WAN, with no true “primary” server. Failure on a single node does not bring down the application or the data source, as it has an insane amount of redundancy built into it, to the nth degree.

xkoto has provided the resiliency at the database layer. XtreemOS Linux (http://www.xtreemos.org/) now provides the OS. The app is the easiest one of all to add into the mix. Now you just need the network hardware, architecture, heavy security, and best practices to join it all together with. You need a Cisco to help you out here.

Only IBM can do this kind of vertical integration. Oracle thinks they can after they bought Sun, but the only thing they are good at vertically integrating is bloated license compliance models. Microsoft is the only other player that has access to all the pieces. Cisco is moving there but they have a steep learning curve on the application and DB side.

10 years ago IBM pushed Linux over the top and into the mainstream, and now an opportunity has arisen for the next generation of technology. Can they do it again ???