The low-down on the Linux High-Availability Project

What are the advantages of Linux HA rather than the hardware solutions that are out there?

I think that when it comes to HA solutions it's really about finding a solution that best fits the need at hand. How strict are the HA requirements? How fast does the fail-over need to be? What if any performance hit is acceptable? How much hardware-over-commit is reasonable?

Each solution meets these criteria in different ways. Linux HA has its parameters and it works within them. I think that the thing that is different about Linux HA is that the code is open source. This basically means that within Linux HA's definition of what HA is, people are able to customise and extend the code to meet their needs.

I know that is a bit of a catch-cry of the open source world, but in Linux HA we really do see people adding to the code to meet their needs.

What's the best comment you've ever gotten about the name "ultramonkey"?

I think the most amusing comment was in a meeting where some Japanese people likened the project name to that of the TV series "Monkey Magic", which is sometimes referred to as "Super Monkey" in Japan.