Newspaper Opts for Both Performance and Availability

The result is an innovative single project that will eventually move the Tribune off of its legacy mainframes and onto a single cluster of Sun 15K servers. What's interesting about the server cluster is that it is extended across two buildings that are two miles apart. A dark fiber connection across the two main data centers will enable the Tribune to use the servers at both data centers in an active, clustered fashion. But because the two buildings are geographically separated, this approach also means that each data center can act as a backup for the other, eliminating the need for a passive backup data center for disaster recovery.

Last month, Network Computing went on location at the Tribune to speak with its IT staff about the project for a cover story we're planning in August. Our first interview was with Darko Dejanovic, who is CTO of the Chicago Tribune as well as CTO of its parent organization, the Tribune Co.

Darko spoke about the financial rationale for the server consolidation project:

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Assuming that the Chicago Tribune's server consolidation effort is a success, there's a good chance that some of the technologies will be extended to some of the other newspapers owned by the Tribune Co., including the Los Angeles Times. Here's what Darko had to say about that:Play the clip

The Tribune's server consolidation project is also interesting from a technical perspective. For example, the newspaper is one of the first to create a cluster of Sun servers across a two-mile distance, using dark fiber from AT&T that runs under the city of Chicago. You'd think clustering servers across such a distance would create some performance problems, but Darko told us that the truth is just the opposite:

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We'll have more from our interviews at the Chicago Tribune over the next few weeks, as we prepare the cover story for the Aug. 19 issue of Network Computing.