Three Views of the Sun Cluster System

This section describes three different views of the Sun Cluster system and the key concepts and documentation relevant to each view. These views are typical for the following professionals:

• Hardware installation and service personnel

• System administrators

• Application developers

Hardware Installation and Service View

To hardware service professionals, the Sun Cluster system looks like a collection of off-the-shelf hardware that includes servers, networks, and storage. These components are all cabled together so that every component has a backup and no single point of failure exists.

Key Concepts – Hardware

Hardware service professionals need to understand the following cluster concepts.

• Cluster hardware configurations and cabling

• Installing and servicing (adding, removing, replacing):

  • Network interface components (adapters, junctions, cables)

  • Disk interface cards

  • Disk arrays

  • Disk drives

  • The administrative console and the console access device

• Setting up the administrative console and console access device

More Hardware Conceptual Information

The following sections contain material relevant to the preceding key concepts:

• Cluster Nodes

• Multihost Devices

• Local Disks

• Cluster Interconnect

• Public Network Interfaces

• Client Systems

• Administrative Console

• Console Access Devices

• SPARC: Clustered Pair Topology for SPARC

• SPARC: N+1 (Star) Topology for SPARC

Sun Cluster Documentation for Hardware Professionals

The following Sun Cluster document includes procedures and information associated with hardware service concepts:

Sun Cluster 3.0-3.1 Hardware Administration Manual for Solaris OS

System Administrator View

To the system administrator, the Sun Cluster system is a set of servers (nodes) cabled together, sharing storage devices. The system administrator sees software that performs specific tasks:

• Specialized cluster software integrated with Solaris software to monitor the connectivity between cluster nodes

• Specialized software that monitors the health of user application programs running on the cluster nodes

• Volume management software that sets up and administers disks

• Specialized cluster software that enables all nodes to access all storage devices, even those not directly connected to disks

• Specialized cluster software that enables files to appear on every node as though they were locally attached to that node

Key Concepts –System Administration

System administrators need to understand the following concepts and processes:

• The interaction between the hardware and software components

• The general flow of how to install and configure the cluster including:

  • Installing the Solaris Operating System

  • Installing and configuring Sun Cluster software

  • Installing and configuring a volume manager

  • Installing and configuring application software to be cluster ready

  • Installing and configuring Sun Cluster data service software

• Cluster administrative procedures for adding, removing, replacing, and servicing cluster hardware and software components

• Configuration modifications to improve performance

More System Administrator Conceptual Information

The following sections contain material relevant to the preceding key concepts:

• Administrative Interfaces

• Cluster Time

• High-Availability Framework

• Global Devices

• Disk Device Groups

• Global Namespace

• Cluster File Systems

• Disk-Path Monitoring

• About Failure Fencing

• Data Services

Sun Cluster Documentation for System Administrators

The following Sun Cluster documents include procedures and information associated with the system administration concepts:

• Sun Cluster Software Installation Guide for Solaris OS

• Sun Cluster System Administration Guide for Solaris OS

• Sun Cluster Error Messages Guide for Solaris OS

• Sun Cluster 3.1 4/05 Release Notes for Solaris OS

• Sun Cluster 3.x Release Notes Supplement

Application Developer View

The Sun Cluster system provides data services for such applications as Oracle, NFS, DNS, Sun^TM Java System Web Server, Apache Web Server (on SPARC based systems), and Sun Java System Directory Server. Data services are created by configuring off-the-shelf applications to run under control of the Sun Cluster software. The Sun Cluster software provides configuration files and management methods that start, stop, and monitor the applications. If you need to create a new failover or scalable service, you can use the Sun Cluster Application Programming Interface (API) and the Data Service Enabling Technologies API (DSET API) to develop the necessary configuration files and management methods that enable its application to run as a data service on the cluster.

Key Concepts – Application Development

Application developers need to understand the following:

• The characteristics of their application to determine whether it can be made to run as a failover or scalable data service.

• The Sun Cluster API, DSET API, and the “generic” data service. Developers need to determine which tool is most suitable for them to use to write programs or scripts to configure their application for the cluster environment.

More Application Developer Conceptual Information

The following sections contain material relevant to the preceding key concepts:

• Data Services

• Resources, Resource Groups, and Resource Types

• Chapter 4, Frequently Asked Questions

Sun Cluster Documentation for Application Developers

The following Sun Cluster documents include procedures and information associated with the application developer concepts:

• Sun Cluster Data Services Developer’s Guide for Solaris OS

• Sun Cluster Data Services Planning and Administration Guide for Solaris OS