IBM Unveils Pricing and Packaging for DataMirror HA Software

February 5, 2008 Alex Woodie

IBM last week made its first software announcement for iCluster, the collection of high availability software obtained with its acquisition of DataMirror last year. The company will sell a full version of iCluster to large customers with complicated and high-transaction environments, and will sell a scaled-down version called iCluster SMB to small and mid size businesses.

When IBM acquired DataMirror last summer for $161 million, it obtained two main product lines, including the iCluster HA software, and Transformation Server, a data replication tool that supports all major database management systems. It was generally accepted at the time that IBM was not interested in iCluster so much as Transformation Server, a very successful product that has proved to be very fast in IBM benchmark tests.

While Transformation Server was really what IBM was after, it wasn’t going to kill off or stop selling the iCluster product, which has been in production for years in some of the world’s largest System i shops, and is still a very viable product.

To that end, as part of its i5/OS V6R1 announcements last week, IBM decided to formally announce iCluster to the world. While there doesn’t appear to be a new release of the software or any new capabilities added, IBM has tweaked the product’s packaging just a bit. And it has disclosed list prices, which is probably the most interesting piece.

In terms of packaging, IBM will sell the full iCluster product to the largest System i shops running complex environments involving multiple applications and backup requirements. IBM is pushing the iBalance option of iCluster as a particularly attractive approach for performing workload balancing at the largest HA environments. With iBalance, customers could run workloads on both their production machine and the CBU Edition System i server.

For smaller System i shops that don’t have a lot of time to fine tune their setup and that aren’t likely to use high-end features, IBM recommends iCluster SMB. This product includes an automatic configuration option to get remote journaling up and running quickly.

On the pricing front, IBM published a set of suggested prices for the iCluster products, because iCluster is now sold through IBM business partners. Customers with P05 machines will pay $13,500 for the base iCluster product with one year of maintenance. That cost goes up to $229,500 for iCluster on a P60 box. The iBalance feature will cost $3,375 on a P05 machine, scaling up to $57,375 for a P60 box.

Licenses for iCluster SMB start at $4,500 for the smallest P05 box (which includes one year of maintenance), and scale up to $37,500 for the largest P60 box. IBM also sells three-year maintenance packages, as well as 24×7 support.

For more information, see IBM Software Announcement 208-019.