Preface
This book is one of an on-going series developed by the engineering staff of the Sun BluePrints Program. The Sun BluePrints Program is managed by the Enterprise Engineering group, and provides a framework to identify, develop, and distribute best practices information for Sun products.
If you are new to clustering, we discuss how a cluster is built and configured, plus more (a lot more)--we recommend you read the book from cover to cover. For those with cluster experience, the book has been set out in modular fashion--each section covers specific areas that can be quickly identified and referenced.
This book builds a solid foundation by detailing the architecture and configuration of the Sun Cluster software. The information provided in this book extends beyond the Sun Cluster infrastructure and introduces Sun Cluster
2.2 (SC2.2) applications, maintenance, and datacenter best practices to enhance datacenter efficiency and application availability.
The Sun Cluster 2.2 technology has evolved due in part to the involvement and commitment of its customers to achieve a high level of maturity and robustness. Sun Microsystems' participation in the cluster software arena began in the spring of 1995 with the introduction of the SPARCcluster 1 product.
In the summer of 1995, the SPARCcluster PDB (parallel database) 1.0 software was introduced to enable parallel node scalability--this product also supported a highly available application environment. The SPARCcluster PDB software enabled a parallel database products such as Oracle Parallel Server (OPS), Informix Extended Parallel System (XPS), and Sybase Navigation Server to be used in a two node cluster.
After the release of the SPARCcluster PDB software, a separate development group within Sun introduced the the SPARCcluster HA (high availability) product in the winter of 1995. The SPARCcluster HA software enabled a highly available environment for mission-critical applications such as databases, NFS, and DNS Servers.
Although the SPARCcluster PDB and SPARCcluster HA software products had different architectures and different algorithms for data protection, cluster membership, and data management, they shared functional similarities--both
environments supported a subset of available Sun servers and storage devices, and used a network interconnect for cluster communications.
A fundamental difference between these cluster products was that SPARCcluster HA required Solstice DiskSuite software to support shared disk storage, while SPARCcluster PDB required Virtues Cluster Volume Manager (CVM) software.
To maximize the investment in engineering resources, Sun Microsystems unified its cluster software development program and merged the SPARCcluster HA and SPARCcluster PDB solutions to create the Sun Cluster 2.0 software, which was released in the fall of 1997.
The Sun BluePrints Program
The primary purposes of the Sun BluePrints Program are the research, development, and publishing of best practices using Sun Products. These BluePrints provide the required building blocks to assist in the creation of high-performance, highly available and highly reliable datacenters.
To ensure up-to-date information is available to customers, a web site is provided to complement the BluePrints Program.
The mission of the Sun BluePrints Program is to empower Sun customers with the technical knowledge required to implement an expandable, highly available, and secure information system within a datacenter using Sun products. The Sun BluePrints Program is managed by the Enterprise Engineering group. This group provides a framework to identify, develop, and distribute best practice information that can be applied across all Sun products. Subject matter experts in the areas of performance, resource management, security, high-performance computing, networking, and storage write articles that explain the best methods of integrating Sun Products into a datacenter.
The Enterprise Engineering group is the primary contributor of technical content for the Sun BluePrints Program, which includes books, guides, and online articles. Through these vehicles, Sun provides down-to-earth guidance,
installation tips, real-life implementation experiences, and late-breaking technical information.
Who Should Use This Book
This book is written for experienced system administrators, system architects, and technologists interested in acquiring or enhancing their Sun cluster expertise. Those who use this book should be familiar with UNIX[R] and the
Solaris Operating Environment (Solaris OE).
How This Book Is Organized
This book is divided into two major sections:
Part I, Infrastructure
Describes basic availability concepts and Sun cluster 2.2 architecture and its components. It contains the following chapters:
Chapter 1, "High Availability Fundamentals" on page 1
High availability is a fundamental component for today's mission-critical applications. Implementation of high availability now spans beyond the hardware and software platforms to include the total system infrastructure. This chapter focuses on the basic concepts and mathematical formulas that define reliability, availability, and serviceability (RAS). Additionally, we discuss the best practices and elements that play a key role for increasing availability at the single node and datacenter levels.
Chapter 2, "Sun Cluster 2.2 Architecture" on page 31
The Sun Cluster 2.2 framework is a collection of integrated software modules that provides a highly available environment with horizontal scalability. Topics such as cluster topologies, cluster membership, quorum algorithms, failure fencing, and network monitoring are discussed.
Chapter 3, "Sun Cluster 2.2 Components" on page 77
There are many component choices to be made when assembling a cluster. This chapter discusses capacity, performance, and availability features of supported Sun Cluster 2.2 componenets--servers, disk storage, interconnect, and public networks. This information can help you assemble a cluster to match your requirements
Part II, Implementation
Discusses the techniques necessary to design, implement, and maintain Sun Clusters.
Chapter 4, "Sun Cluster 2.2 Administration" on page 111
After a cluster environment has been installed, configured, and is in production, it needs to be correctly maintained to preserve its high
availability. This chapter complements existing Sun Cluster 2.2 manuals, and addresses when, why, and how Sun Cluster 2.2 commands should be used to help increase availability.
Chapter 5, "Highly Available Databases" on page 187
Databases represent the transactional back-end of a large percentage of mission-critical applications. This chapter presents a general discussion on databases supported by the Sun Cluster 2.2 software--namely Oracle. This chapter focuses primarily on the Oracle database, and discusses software installation, configuration options, logical host creation, and data service agent monitoring.
Chapter 6, "Sun Cluster 2.2 Application Notes" on page 231
This chapter provides the framework for implementing a cluster configuration from scratch. The techniques and issues involved in configuring a low-end, distributed NFS server are discussed.
Chapter 7, "Sun Cluster 2.2 Data Services" on page 281
Sun Cluster 2.2 software is equipped with a standard application programming interface (API) that enables programmers to transform existing applications into highly available applications. This chapter discusses the SC2.2 Data Services API and various routines required to manage an existing application under the SC2.2 infrastructure.
Chapter 8, "Beyond Sun Cluster 2.2" on page 301
This chapter provides an introduction to the pinnacle of the Sun Cluster technology (Sun Cluster 3.0). Topics discussed include global file services,
scalable services, availability, and supported cluster configurations.
"Appendix A: SCSI-Initiator ID" on page 319
This appendix presents an in-depth tutorial for resolving SCSI controller issues when using multiple hosts that share SCSI storage.
"Appendix B: SC2.2 Data Service Templates" on page 339
This appendix is a collection of Bourne shell templates that support all data service agent routines.
Related Books
Resource Management, Mc Dougall et al.
Sun Microsystems Press/Prentice Hall PTR (1999)
ISBN 0-13-025855-5
Blueprints for High Availability, Marcus, Stern
John Wiley & Sons, Inc. (2000)
ISBN 0471-35601-8
In Search of Clusters, Pfister
Prentice Hall PTR (1998)
ISBN 0-13-899709-8
