Sybase has entered the cluster-database market, releasing Adaptive Server Enterprise Cluster Edition to compete with the likes of Oracle's Real Application Clusters.
Sybase's offering uses shared-disk clustering, where a number of ASE server instances are grouped into a cluster seen as a single system managing the same set of data. This allows application workloads to be balanced among the instances. The software automatically migrates connections if a node fails, according to the company.
Sybase hasn't necessarily surpassed Oracle's capabilities, says Forrester analyst Noel Yuhanna. Its new product might be more suitable for "smaller environments, or those that are only focused around Linux and Solaris", he says.