Steeleye, which focuses on business continuity and disaster recovery for Windows and Linux environments on x86 platforms, already supports applications such as SAP, Exchange and the Oracle database. The decision to add LAMP to the list was taken because of the growing number of business relying on this software stack, said the company.
The software, LifeKeeper, monitors hardware and software and supports the movement of LAMP components among servers. European director John Banfield said a typical installation would cost about $5,000.
Responding to the suggestion that companies using freely available open-source software might balk at paying such licence fees, Banfield said that for many companies the choice of the LAMP stack is more about quality of engineering than low (or no) cost licences. "They reason they buy this to protect their applications because that is important to them," said Banfield. "If it wasn't important they wouldn't bother. Each customer is different; for some it will be transactional servers, for others it will be providing content, but in all cases the business are those who will be able to put some value on their uptime, either in terms of lost business or in terms of customer perception."
The LifeKeeper LAMP solution has two components: a clustering solution that helps users manage up to 32 nodes, protect IP connections and monitor the network environment; and application recovery kits, which monitor the alert states of the applications and take appropriate action when needed.