---
canonical: https://safekit.evidian.com//wp-content/uploads/documents/high-availability-overview.pdf
---

# PDF Converted to Markdown

## Page 1

<pre>Eviden SafeKit, the easiest-to-
use redundancy software to
achieve 24/7 high availability
of business-critical applications
In a world where continuous access to your data and applications is critical for busi-
ness success, you need 24/7 uptime with zero scope for any deviations. Eviden SafeKit is a
comprehensive, software-based high availability product that provides continuous, non-stop
operations of your critical applications so your business runs like clockwork.S
afeKit is an all-in-one offering from Eviden that
provides business continuity and load-bal-ancing.
SafeKit runs on Windows and Linux and eliminates
t h e n e e d f o r s h a r e d d i s k s , O S a n d d a t a b a s e
e n t e r p r i s e e d i t i o n s o r a n y s p e c i a l s k i l l s .
This easy-to-deploy, cost-effective solution does not
require any specialized computer or software training
— enabling a shorter learning curve, simple assimilation
and faster knowledge transfer.
What is SafeKit?
Why choose SafeKit?
• Microsoft or Linux clustering is too complex
• Shared disks on a SAN, network load balancers, enter-
prise editions for database replication are too expensive
• You need real-time synchronous replication with no data
loss on failure contrary to asynchronous replication
• You need automatic failover and failback
• You need an agnostic high availability solution that works
with physical machines, virtual machines and public
cloud infrastructure
What are the target markets?
This platform agnostic, software-based solution can be
seamlessly applied to critical applications in a broad range
of industries such as manufacturing, transport, telecom,
healthcare and finance. Its ease-of-use and adaptability
makes it perfect for any company deploying a critical
application in a vertical market, or those searching for a
simple high availability solution that will work with their
applications. SafeKit is the ideal solution for software pub-
lishers, resellers and distributors.
Real-time
replication
Automatic
failover
Network load
balancing
Software-only
high availability
Application SafeKit</pre>

## Page 2

<pre>ECT-230511-SB-SafeKit-Flyer
Eviden is a registered trademark of BULL SAS. © Copyright 2023, BULL SAS. Confidential information owned by BULL SAS, to be used by the recipient only. This
document, or any part of it, may not be reproduced, copied, circulated and/or distributed nor quoted without prior written approval from BULL SAS.
Software clustering vs. hardware clustering
A simple software cluster with the SafeKit
package installed on two servers
Complex hardware clustering with external
storage or network load balancer
Shared nothing vs. shared disk cluster
SafeKit is a shared-nothing cluster —
easy to deploy, even in remote sites
A shared disk cluster is complex to deploy
High availability vs. fault tolerance
SafeKit doesn’t require a dedicated server; each server
can be the failover server for the other
Requires a secondary server dedicated to
executing the same application, synchronized
at the instruction level
Synchronous replication vs. asynchronous replication
SafeKit implements real-time synchronous
replication with no data loss in case of failure
With asynchronous replication,
there is data loss on failure
Byte-level file replication vs. block-level disk replication
SafeKit implements real-time byte-level file replication
and is simply configured with application directories to
replicate, even in the system disk
Block-level disk replication is complex to
configure and requires putting application
data in a special disk
Heartbeat, failover and quorum to avoid 2 master nodes
To avoid 2 masters, SafeKit utilizes a simple split
brain checker configured on a router
To avoid 2 masters, other clusters require a complex
configuration with a third machine, a special quorum
disk, or a special interconnect
Virtual IP address and load balancing
A SafeKit cluster requires no dedicated proxy
servers or special network configuration
for virtual IP addresses
Special network configuration is required in
other clusters for virtual IP addresses. Note: SafeKit
offers a health check adapted to load balancers
Application HA and full virtual machine HA
SafeKit supports application HA with scripts for a quick
restart or VM HA with reboot of VMs without additional
scripts
Hypervisor clustering solutions don’t support
application HA and require shared disks for VM HA
What are the best scenarios for using SafeKit?
• A software publisher searching for a high availability
add-on
• A reseller wishing to deploy high availability in many
companies
• High availability and disaster recovery solution with 2
nodes in 2 remote sites
• Replication of a few Terabytes, with less than 1,000,000
files
• 1Gb/s or 10 G/s LAN or extended LAN between nodes
• Load balancing of less than 10 servers
• Replication of less than 32 VMs when full VMs are
replicated under Hyper-V or KVM
What are the benefits of SafeKit?
• Zero specific skills are required to deploy a SafeKit high
availability solution, instead leveraging a very simple
web console to do the job
• Zero extra hardware costs as the solution is indepen-
dent of any hardware, and runs on existing physical
servers, in virtual machines, or in the cloud
• Zero extra software costs because SafeKit works with
standard editions of OS and databases
• Try and buy options enable you to test SafeKit for free
on Windows or Linux. Free trial on SafeKit web site.
• Synchronous replication to ensure no data loss, as any
data committed to disk by a transactional application
is replicated on the secondary node
• Automatic failover, automatic failback on a secondary
node in case of hardware/network/software failures</pre>
