PolyServe Steps Up

Painted an assertive shade of yellow and trimmed with deep blue, the headquarters of PolyServe stand in stark contrast to the bleached wood and corrugated aluminum of the surrounding Berkeley, Calif., neighborhood.

The contrast works as a metaphor for PolyServe: The fledgling software company is trying hard to stand out, both in its clustering-software products and in its method of taking them to the market.

PolyServe's two products,Understudy and LocalCluster,are software-only network clustering solutions for high availability and load-balancing in e-commerce systems. While clustering has long been a strategy for high-end data centers, PolyServe is using technology originally developed at Cornell University to bring clustering to companies of all sizes.

"There are three kinds of clustering," says Vince Schiavo, PolyServe's president. "There's numeric clustering, which ties large computers together like you'd see in a research laboratory, where you need a huge amount of computing power. Then there's clustering done on the front end of the network, which is typically done by hardware companies, such as Cisco and Radware. For these guys, clustering is seen mostly as a reason to sell big iron."

The third type of clustering,the type PolyServe hopes to make popular,is the use of subclusters. Web servers can be clustered, providing clients with a single point of access. Application servers can be clustered, allowing Web servers to view them as a single entity. Database servers can be clustered to appear as a single entity to Web and application servers.

"We're doing what the hardware guys are doing, just without the boxes," Schiavo says. "Those high-availability boxes scale well, but if you're a dot-com start-up and want high availability, failover and load sharing, you may not want to pony up the cash up front." The aim of PolyServe is to let companies cluster low-end servers or appliances and make clustering a strategy for all companies, regardless of size.

That's a pretty heady goal for a company with just 20 employees, who are divided between facilities in Berkeley and Portland, Ore. However, a deal the company signed with Network Associates represents a major step toward that goal, Schiavo says. The deal co-brands PolyServe's products under the McAfee label, using the same packaging PolyServe has used. "That preserves our brand, and it lets us be the company we want to be," Schiavo says. "By finding a partner whose business is producing software, we get to focus on doing all the creative work."

While the company is in the incubation stage, plans for growth are ambitious. Schiavo expects a second round of investment from local venture capital firms, and he predicts PolyServe will add four new products by next year.

PolyServe Profile

Software developer specializing in server clustering software for Internet-based apps.

Financially backed by The Roda Group, known as the incubator of the Ask Jeeves' site.

Flagship products include LocalCluster.